Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
by Save vs. Magic
Summary: Injured while Monster Hunting, Justin concludes that he's not man enough for the job. Determined to prove himself worthy, he sets out to make himself harder, better, faster, stronger...an idea Alex finds strangely compelling. JALEX. M for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**TITLE:** _Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger_

**RATING:** M/NC-17 for (eventual) explicit depictions of consensual, slightly underage sibcest, as well as strong language.

**CONTENT:** A mutant hybrid/bastard lovechild of song!fic, fix!fic and smut!fic. Contains elements of romance, angst, hurt/comfort, and smut—oh, is there smut!—with a little bit of meta humor thrown in for color. Eventual Jalex, from Alex's POV, without ignoring the canon pairings of Justin/Juliet and Alex/Mason.

**WORD COUNT:** Approximately 36K in 15 chapters.

**DISCLAIMER:** _Wizards of Waverly Place_ and its characters are owned by people who aren't me. So are the songs _Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger_ by Daft Punk, _Stronger_ by Kanye West, as well as the various DC Comics characters mentioned throughout. No copyright infringement is intended, yada yada yada, please don't sue.

**SPOILERS:** Extremely heavy spoilage for about the first third of Season 3, up to Episode 3.09/10, "Wizards Vs. Werewolves". (In fact, if you _haven't_ seen those episodes, this probably isn't going to make a whole lot of sense to you.)

**SUMMARY:** Justin Russo, Junior Monster Hunter, is the only thing that stands between Greenwhich Village and a sudden, unexplained infestation of creatures from the wizarding world. When he's injured in the line of duty, requiring Alex and Juliet to rescue him, Justin concludes that he's just not man enough for the job. Determined to prove himself worthy, he sets out to make himself harder, better, faster, stronger...an idea which Alex finds strangely intriguing. Inspired by a prompt at the LiveJournal kink meme, omgjustinalex.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:** Cross-posted from my LiveJournal, where it was originally posted on October 20, 2010. A 'between-the-scenes' companion to the Monster Hunter/Werewolf arc, _HBFS_ is my humble attempt to spackle over some plot holes, reconcile the inconsistent characterization that I've always felt plagued it, and layer in a little subtext of my own. (Note that it assumes episodes 3.06, "Dollhouse" and 3.07, "Marathoner Harper" aren't part of the arc, and actually happened _afterwards_, since I'm halfway convinced these episodes aired out of sequence, anyway.) If you're brand new to the fandom/pairing, or you haven't seen Season 3 yet, you may want to skip it for now and come back later once you're caught up. If, on the other hand, you _have_ watched Season 3 and wondered where all the glorious Jalex-y subtext disappeared to, especially in the wake of the movie, then this Bud's definitely for you!

* * *

**i.**

Justin gets off easy, all things considered, with only a few scratches, a sprained ankle, and a mild concussion. But the will-o'-wisp gets away, choosing to flee rather than finish him off, probably because it's not worth the effort to drain the powers of a Monster Hunter who's not yet a full wizard. And Alex and Juliet wind up having to carry him home when they finally find him, hours later, lying battered and unconscious in a pile of garbage, in an alley just west of East 8th and Broadway.

(OK, so it's Juliet who does most of the carrying. And most of the finding, actually. Because, y'know, vampire, what with the super strength and keen senses and everything. Not that Alex couldn't have done it all herself. It just would have taken her longer is all.)

"Ungh! For a skinny science geek, he's a lot heavier than he looks!" Alex grunts, tugging Justin's arm over her shoulder as Juliet does the same on his other side. Together, they heave him limply to his feet. "Can't I just use my wand to flash us back, or whatever?"

"Not if he's had a bad blow to the head," Juliet says, in a tone that suggests Alex ought to know better, being a wizard and all. "If he's got a concussion, a teleportation spell could make it worse."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Alex shoots Juliet a look over top of Justin's head, where it lolls against his chest. "Gee, look who's an expert, all of the sudden."

"I'm two thousand years old, Alex. I have picked up a thing or two," Juliet says patiently, shifting Justin against her so that she's bearing most of his weight. "Besides, being around Justin so much, you just tend to absorb knowledge like that."

Again, she says it like maybe Alex should have absorbed a bit by now herself, but this time Alex lets it pass. Because, OK, she may have a point there. Instead, she tilts her head down to study the bruises and scratches on Justin's face, and scowls.

"Geez, a little floaty ball of light did this to him?" she says, incredulous. "That's like getting the crap kicked out of you by Tinkerbell. Just how bad of a Monster Hunter is he?"

"For your information, wisps are level seven monsters, and Justin had no business going after it on his own," Juliet snaps, and reaches up with her left hand to wipe away an angry tear. "Don't you dare make fun of him for this, Alex. I mean it. He's going to be hard enough on himself about this, as it is."

"But I wasn't—!" Alex swallows the rest of her protest as Juliet glares at her, sneering just enough that the tips of her fangs are just barely visible beneath her top lip. And though Alex isn't normally one to allow others to intimidate her, she drops Justin's arm and hurries to the mouth of the alley to hail down a cab, chalking Juliet's snippiness up to concern over her boyfriend.

After loading him into the back of the taxi between them, they ride in silence all the way back to Waverly Place, with Alex reflecting that Juliet doesn't know her brother as well as she thinks she does. Because, seriously...Mister Perfect, hard on himself? Shyeah, right.


	2. Chapter 2

**ii.**

"You're dropping all this ridiculous Monster Hunting nonsense right now," Theresa says to him the next day, with an air of finality. "I'm serious. End of discussion."

"Mom, you know I can't do that," Justin sighs. Lying on the couch, with his back against the arm and his injured leg propped up on a pillow, he turns his eyes to Jerry, raising his eyebrows as if to ask him for help. "Tell her, Dad. I can't just quit."

"Uh, it _is_ part of his independent study, honey," Jerry says, rising the occasion, although the way his own eyes crinkle at the corners show that he's not entirely convinced, himself. "If Justin's going to complete his wizard training, he does need to do one."

"And it has to be Monster Hunting?" Theresa snaps at him, her dark eyes blazing. "Haven't you people ever heard of bird courses? There has to be something less dangerous that he can do instead. Like...Magical Basket Weaving or something."

"Oh, dude," Alex pipes in, from where she sits on a stool in the kitchenette, leaning against the island. "If that's seriously an option, then I so know what I'm signing up for. Right, Max? Up top!"

Grinning, she holds up her hand to her younger brother, where he stands behind the island. Beaming, Max starts to high-five her back, but hesitates as Conscience, standing next to him, pointedly clears his throat. Max frowns at him, Conscience shakes his head softly, and then Max slowly lowers his arm, adopting a solemn expression.

"We, uh, don't think that's very appropriate, Alex," Max says, jerking his head towards Conscience, "and frankly, we're shocked by your insensitivity."

"Good call, buddy," Conscience nods, patting him on the shoulder and giving him the thumbs-up.

"Thanks Roy," Max says.

Alex glowers at them for leaving her hanging, then sits up straight on her stool and tucks her hands in her lap, withering slightly under the glare she receives from her parents. "Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood."

"Theresa, honey," Jerry sighs, with a shake of his head, "no offense, but becoming a full wizard is not exactly the same as earning a liberal arts degree at a college in Mexico. Justin has the potential to become one of the greatest wizards of his generation, and Monster Hunting is a very prestigious field! Completing this independent study could open a lot of doors for him in the wizarding world!"

"It could also land him in an early grave!" Theresa snaps, coming around the couch to poke her husband in the chest. "And if your son's safety doesn't mean as much to you as his potential, then maybe—"

"That's not why I can't quit," Justin breaks in suddenly, loudly enough to cut her off. He sets his jaw and crosses his arms over his chest as his parents turn around to regard him.

"I've been in touch with the Monster Hunters' Council," Justin explains, "and apparently there's an unusually high concentration of unregistered monsters lurking in the city for this time of year. Chancellor Tuttitutti has never seen anything like it. It's as though somebody took every creature described in the Monster Manual and set them loose on New York."

"Pfft!" Max scoffs, a little louder than absolutely necessary. "Like anyone would really be stupid enough to do that!"

"Yeah," Conscience says flatly, staring pointedly at Max. "As if."

Max blinks at him, then looks down at his shoes, muttering something about how he'd like to see them prove it.

"The Monster Hunters' Council is doing the best it can to contain it, but they're stretched pretty thin," Justin continues. "So some of us in the independent study program have been granted provisional field promotions to Junior Monster Hunter, and assigned to patrol a low priority region. So right now, the only thing standing between those creatures and the innocent citizens of Greenwich Village...is me."

"Uh, have you ever actually been in the West Village, egghead?" Alex snorts, as she scarfs down a piece of sliced pickle. "Because I sure wouldn't call them _all_ innocent..."

Justin casts an angry glance over his shoulder at her, before turning back to his parents, resolute. "It's up to me, Mom. I have to stop them, before anyone else gets hurt."

"But what about you?" Theresa protests, sitting down on the edge of the couch next to him, cradling his face in her hands. "This is very dangerous, mijo! That thing could have killed you! Surely there must be more experienced wizards who can take care of this!"

"The Monster Hunters' Council is training Emergency Wizards even as we speak," Jerry volunteers, "but that could take weeks. Justin's right, honey: until then, he's pretty much on his own."

"Mom, listen," Justin says, taking her hands in his and pulling them off his face. "I can do this, OK? I can handle this. The wisp just caught me off-guard, is all. I wasn't ready for it, I know, but I'll get ready. I'll make myself—"

"OHMIGOD!" Max shouts suddenly from the island, making the rest of the family jump. "Do you know what this is? This is that scene in _Batman: Year One_, when Bruce Wayne gets his ass kicked the first night he goes out, right? And he almost dies, because the bad guys aren't afraid of him? But then the bat crashes though the window while he's sitting there, almost bleeding to death, and he takes it as a sign that he has to become a bat himself! And that's you, man! You're, like, BATMAN right before he becomes BATMAN!"

The rest of the family—Conscience included—stares at Max like he's insane, but Justin smiles smugly and narrows his eyes, clearly liking the sound of this.

"I am," he nods to himself, dropping his voice an octave. "I'm Batman."

"Oh please, are you kidding me?" Alex scoffs around a mouthful of pickle. "Dude, you got your butt handed to you by a glorified Lite-Brite. You haven't caught a single monster on your own yet, without help. You're barely Robin!"

"Alex!" Jerry says sharply, even as Justin's shoulders slump against the arm of the couch.

"No Dad, she's right," Justin says, before Jerry's lecture can really get warmed up. "I _am_ barely Robin. Bruce Wayne honed his mind and body for years before he became Batman, and I've only been Monster Hunting for a couple of weeks. I'm not good enough, fast enough, or strong enough. I'm too soft. But mark my words..."

And here, Justin stands up, wincing slightly as he shifts his weight off of his sprained ankle, and strikes a heroic pose, his chest squared and his jaw set with determination.

"...I shall become a bat."

There's a heavy moment of silence as the rest of the family reacts to this pronouncement. Jerry beams at him with something akin to pride, while Theresa frowns at him in concern. Max grins like this is the most awesome thing he's ever seen. Conscience stares at Max as though he's lost his mind. And Alex rolls her eyes, swivels on her stool, and starts flipping through the gossip magazine that's open on the counter in front of her.

"Yeah, good luck with that," she mutters indifferently, as she plucks another pickle slice up off her plate. "But if you start wearing your underwear on the outside of your pants, I'm _so_ telling everyone at school that you've been lying about us being related all these years."


	3. Chapter 3

**iii.**

Three days later, on her way down to the basement, Alex curses and nearly drops her laundry basket as she bashes her forehead on the pipe that hangs low over the landing. Seeing stars and grumbling to herself, she half-stumbles the rest of the way down, wondering for the thousandth time why her parents have never bothered to have the damn thing moved. She sets the basket full of dirty laundry down on top of the washing machine, wrenches her eyes shut, and brings one hand up to probe the tender spot on her forehead. And seriously, it's a wonder her entire family hasn't suffered permanent brain damage thanks to that stupid pipe. Well, everyone except Max, anyway.

Gradually, as the pain and the dizziness start to subside, Alex becomes aware of an unusual noise, drowning out the familiar, persistent drone of the furnace: a kind of mechanical hum, accompanied by a regular, staccato _thud-thud-thud-thud_. Frowning, knowing that she's heard it before, Alex struggles to place it...and for some reason, curiously summons up the hideous mental image of Jerry dressed in a neon-green cutoff T-shirt, purple spandex pants, and a bright orange headband...

And then she gasps and her eyes pop open as it finally clicks: ohmigod, somebody is actually using the old home gym!

Alex spins on her heels to look across the basement to where the treadmill usually sits, forgotten, with several pairs of her mom's stockings hanging from it. And sure enough, there's Justin, in a Captain Jim Bob Sherwood T-shirt and grey sweatpants, huffing and puffing as he power-walks on it, completely oblivious to her. His arms swing stiffly at his sides as he pumps his legs beneath him, raising his knees as high as they'll go with each step, as though he's engaged in some kind of crazy one-man geek pride parade. Red-faced, sweat running in rivulets down his neck to soak the front of his shirt, he stares unblinkingly into the middle-distance as he runs, his eyes fixed on something only he can see. A pair of earbuds are jacked into his ears, plugged into the iPod strapped to his right arm. The thumping bass of whatever he's listening is just barely audible over the whir of the treadmill. Which is a surprise, given his usual paranoia over hearing safety, and that his taste in music lately tends to run towards smooth jazz.

Frowning, Alex takes a few steps closer and leans forward to peer at the digital timer built into the treadmill, then blinks in surprise and looks back up at him, impressed despite herself. Then, curious, she narrows her eyes and cocks her ear towards him, trying to place the song that she can almost make out through his headphones. It's definitely not Miles Davis or (ugh) _Tears of Blood_, but it sure sounds familiar...

And that's when Justin finally notices her out of the corner of his eye.

"AAAUUUGGGHH!" he shrieks suddenly, and jerks away, arms flailing. He loses his balance on the treadmill as he trips over his own ankle, falls forward onto it in a belly-flop, and immediately shoots off the end of it as it propels him backwards into a haphazard stack of cardboard boxes. Alex winces as they come crashing down on top of him.

Christalmighty. No wonder Tinkerbell managed to kick his ass.

Alex sighs as she picks her through the rubble towards him, and gingerly lifts a box of their father's junk off his head. "You all right down there, Batman?"

"AAAUGGGH!" Justin shrieks again, knocking aside the boxes on top of him as he leaps to his feet. Grimacing in pain, he starts hobbling stiff-legged around the basement, like Frankenstein's Monster on a cocaine bender. "CHARLEYHORSE! AUUUUGH! CHARLEYHORSE!"

Dropping the box she's holding, Alex crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head as she watches him lap the concrete floor around her. Then, when he's finally close enough, she hip-checks him into the clothes dryer. As he collapses against it with a grunt, she crouches down to massage his spasming calf with both hands through his sweatpants.

"There," she says flatly, even as she feels the muscles begin to relax beneath her fingers. "Better?"

"Yes...thank you," Justin gasps, his chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath. "Guess I'm...a little...dehydrated..."

"Yeah, no duh!" Alex scoffs as she continues to knead his calf. "You've only been on that thing for close to two hours. Overdoing it much?"

"Told you...you were right..." Justin breathes, leaning heavily against the dryer. He reaches up to tug the headphones out of his ears, then clicks the control wheel on his iPod to pause the music. "Not good enough...need to train..."

"OK, you just said I was right, so clearly you're not just dehydrated, you're delusional, too. You're supposed to be recuperating, egghead. Mom would flip if she saw you pushing yourself this hard."

"Would you relax? It's just a little low-impact cardio...or at least it _was_ until _you_ came along," Justin says, looking pointedly at the boxes that were toppled over in the crash. "Oh, you can stop now, by the way. It's much better, thanks."

"Oh, right," Alex says, releasing her grip on his tender calf. She stands upright and grimaces as she holds her hands out in front of her. "Ugh. Now I'm all covered in geek sweat."

"Besides," Justin continues with a sigh, "the monsters loose in New York—"

He breaks off as Alex steps in front of him and starts wiping her palms off, back and forth, on the sleeves of his T-shirt, the only parts of it not already drenched with sweat. Justin glares at her and clears his throat pointedly, only to have Alex look up at him as though this is nothing unusual.

"What? You were saying?" she asks.

"The monsters loose in New York," he repeats, in his overly-patient, 'my sister is an idiot' voice, "haven't called a time out just because I got hurt, Alex. Every day I'm not out there puts the Village at risk."

Alex rolls her eyes as she braces her arms on the dryer, and hops up onto it to sit next to him.

"God, does 'hard work' always have to be your answer to everything? Because, um, dude? In case you missed the memo? We're _wizards!_ There's gotta be spells you can use to, like, make yourself stronger or faster, or whatever, so you don't have to put yourself through this shit. And don't even say that'd be cheating, Justin, 'cause—"

"—because there's no such thing as a fair fight, and monsters don't give points for good sportsmanship," Justin nods, as though he's reciting it from a textbook he memorized, or something. "That's the first rule of Monster Hunting, yeah."

"Really? I always thought the first rule of Monster Hunter was not to talk about Monster Hunting," Alex frowns.

Justin stares at her blankly. "No, Alex. That would be _Fight Club_."

"Oh, right. Man, I need to watch that again. Brad Pitt was way hot in that movie..."

Justin takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, and Alex can't help but grin. God, it's so easy to push his buttons.

"Look, of _course_ there are spells that could double my speed, or triple my strength," he says, shaking his head, "but that would _still_ only make me as strong and as fast as two or three skinny science nerds who weigh too much, which I think we _both_ know isn't going to cut it."

Alex freezes, her blood turning to ice water in her veins. OK, so he heard that, did he? Oops. But wait, hadn't he been unconscious when she said it? Had Juliet sold her out, or—?

"Bottom line," Justin continues, oblivious, "is that most of those spells are only as effective as I am. And I'll be damned if I'm ever going to let myself be carried home by my girlfriend and my baby sister, again."

Alex frowns, and struggles to get past the sting of being referred to as his 'baby sister'. Because as much of a dick as Justin can be sometimes—as much of a dick as he's being now—it's possible that Juliet just may have been onto something with that whole 'being hard on himself' thing, after all. And while getting under his skin like this normally lights up the pleasure centers of her brain like Rockefeller Center at Christmas, the angry look of self-loathing on his face is actually making her sick to her stomach. Which is...new.

"Justin," she says sincerely—and wow, it even sounds weird to her, because she just doesn't _do_ sincere—"that wisp was way out of your league. And I don't mean that in the usual 'ha-ha, you suck' kind of way, either. You can't beat yourself up over what happened. You did the best you could, just like you always do."

"And my best...wasn't...good enough," Justin scowls, punctuating each word by jabbing his index finger into his own chest, then turns it on her. "Look, Alex, I know what you're doing. I'm guessing Juliet put you up to this. But she couldn't talk me out of this, and if you two honestly thought _you_ might succeed where she failed, then you clearly haven't been paying attention for the past, um, _forever_. Which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one."

"Juliet never put me up to anything," Alex says, fighting to keep her voice level. "I'm just...worried about you, is all."

Justin blinks at n surprise at the sentiment, then snorts in either disgust, utter disbelief, or some combination of the two. And it's not like Alex can blame him, either, given the way it kind of snuck up on her, too.

"Wow," he says, shaking his head. "That right there has got to be the worst lie you've ever told."

Alex stares back at him, silently frowning, unsure how to respond. And when it becomes clear that she doesn't have a snappy comeback for once in her life, Justin snorts again and pushes himself up off the dryer, heading for the stairs.

"I think I'll go finish my workout up in my room," he says quietly as he storms off.

His dramatic exit is ruined somewhat when he bashes his head against the pipe on his way up the stairs, nearly knocking himself flat again in the process. And though she'd usually find this hilarious, Alex just rolls her eyes and turns away without even cracking a smile, busying herself with sorting her laundry as Justin stomps his way up the rest of the stairs.

So, great. Justin gets himself in over his head, nearly gets himself killed, gives himself a freakin' complex over nearly getting himself killed, and now is probably going to hurt himself even worse in some kind of insane quest to turn himself into Batman, or whatever. And somehow, when it all shakes out, Alex just knows that the blame for all this is going to wind up landing squarely on her.

And OK, so most of the time that's exactly where the blame for things actually belongs. She can admit that. But in this case, she's not entirely sure how any of this is her fault, exactly. Like, since when does Justin give a flying fuck what she thinks of him, anyway?

For that matter, since when does she care if he does?

Weird.

Not as nearly as weird, though, as the way she waits until she's sure he's gone to hesitantly bring her hands up to her face, close her eyes, and breathes in through her nose. The scent of him still lingers on her palms, and she smiles ever so slightly as it permeates her, instantly bringing with it a wave of sense memory: childhood nostalgia, comfort and belonging, mixed with...something else that she can't quite put her finger on.

Or, yknow, something that she can put her finger on...but would really, really rather not.

Shaking her head sharply, Alex drops her hands and rubs them on the thighs of her jeans, looking guiltily up the stairs to make sure nobody saw that. Because, hello, how awkward would it be to have to explain this to somebody? Especially when she doesn't have clue one about how to explain it to herself?


	4. Chapter 4

**iv.**

Another week passes, Justin's scratches and bruises fade almost completely, and his limp is barely noticeable. Alex catches him on the home gym a few more times, on the pretense of cleaning out a corner of the basement in which to maybe set up her own art studio. (Which, come to think of it, is not a half-bad idea, actually.) But Justin clearly doesn't buy it, and self-consciously cuts his workout short every time. Eventually, he seems to give up on the idea altogether. And Alex definitely does not feel a surge of disappointment when she goes down to the basement and doesn't find him there for the third day in a row. Because the whole point of catching him in the act was to discourage him from pushing himself too hard, and getting her blamed for it in the process. Not for any other reason at all. Nope. Nuh-uh.

Juliet drops by unannounced a day or two later, while Alex is hanging out with Harper and Justin isn't around, to show them some stupid vampire trick with a jelly doughnut. It's ridiculous (and, uh, more than a little gross), but Alex goes along with it. Juliet's clearly trying to smooth things over and make up for her behavior on the day Justin got hurt, and it's endearingly sweet. For the first time, Alex begins to understand what Justin sees in her. Uncharacteristically, she goes a little overboard in meeting her halfway, fawning over how cool Juliet is and how normal her feet are. It's only once she joins Juliet in bagging on Harper's marker-dress—which, duh, makes Harper _super_ pissed—that Alex realizes she's gone a bridge too far. And that maybe she's overcompensating for something, somehow.

And then Justin goes out on monster hunting patrol again, for the first time since the wisp, and everything goes straight to hell.

Surprisingly, though, not in the way Alex would have expected. Rather than going off half-cocked and getting himself in over his head again in an effort to prove himself, Justin instead reverts to type and completely loses his shit at the first signal his monster detector registers. In a blind panic, he calls for back-up. Then one thing leads to another, and by lunch time, he's inadvertently wound up turning in his vampire girlfriend and her parents to the Monster Hunters' Council.

So, y'know...not his best day.

Fortunately for everyone, Alex comes through in the clutch, cleverly tricking the world's two best professional Monster Hunters—and seriously, these retards are the people Justin looks up to?—into taking two fake monsters away to Monster Jail instead of Juliet's family. And OK, so maybe Alex feels a little bad about Franken Girl, if only because it means Tribeca Prep's yell squad is down a cheerleader, and Frankie could toss a girl in the air like nobody's business. Tryouts to fill that slot are gonna be a bitch. But sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, and if it has to be done, it might as well be by someone who isn't her.

Of course, Harper's still pissed—more about the 'turning her into a decoy and sending her to her possible doom' thing than the 'bagging on her marker-dress' thing, although she's not exactly over that yet, either—but Alex knows she'll come around eventually, because she always does. And Juliet doesn't go to jail, and miraculously doesn't wind up dumping Justin's idiot ass like he deserves. And now Alex can forever tell the story about how she once fearlessly goosed a vampire with a severed monster hand, just because she could. So all's well that ends well.

Except...

Justin goes all weird on her. Well, even _weirder_, if that's possible. Though bailing him out of his whole 'oops, I ratted my girlfriend out to the federales' predicament was kinda sorta intended as an unspoken olive branch—and OK, maybe a little bit of payback for all the times he's bailed her out over the years—Justin seems to take it more as a personal affront, somehow. Of course, that might have something to do with the way she keeps rubbing his nose in it.

"Contrary to how you remember it, Alex, you didn't exactly save the day single-handedly," he snaps at her, one morning over breakfast. "It took both of us to pull that off."

"Heh! Pulled it off? Single-handedly?" Max laughs into his Lucky Charms. Then, off of the blank look this earns him from Justin: "Get it? 'Cause you pulled off Frankie's arm, and that left her single-handed—"

"Don't talk with your mouth full, Max," Conscience scolds him from where he sits on the couch.

"Um, I so did save the day!" Alex says pointedly over the rim of the coffee mug, ignoring them. "In fact, I do believe that's the third time I've rescued your dorky butt this month, egghead. It's becoming a bad habit."

Standing over the sink in the kitchenette, Justin stops scraping off his toast and glares at her. "Not that I'm conceding the point, but who asked for your help, anyway? If it's such an inconvenience for you, maybe you should just start minding your own goddamned business."

"Oh, grow up, Justin," Alex says, rolling her eyes. "If I minded my own business, you'd be dead and/or single right now. Besides, I'm kind of enjoying being the one Russo child who isn't a screw-up, for a change. Might as well enjoy the ride while I can, huh?"

"Ohhhh dude," Max says, looking at Justin sympathetically. "She totally just called you a screw-up."

Justin shoots Max a look that is equal parts annoyance and pity, then shakes his head and focuses his ire back on Alex. "I could have handled any one of those situations myself, given enough time."

"Oh, sure!" Alex says brightly. "All you had to do was ask those monsters at Grand Central Station for a time out before they tore you apart. Ooo, but monsters don't take time outs, do they? Isn't that what you said, Justin? So maybe it's a good thing that I was there to—what would you call it? Oh yeah, SAVE THE DAY!"

"Save the—? Alex, you sent them to _Spain!_" Justin says, his voice raising an octave. "Along with a whole train full of New Yorkers! Several of whom got eaten en route! Can I even begin to tell you how unhappy the Madrid chapter of Monster Hunters is with me right now?"

"So? What, you'd rather I let them eat you instead?"

"I'd rather you not get involved at all! Let me fight my own damn battles!"

"Why? Just so I can carry your sorry ass home after you get the shit kicked out of you again?"

And whoops, there's that whole 'bridge too far' thing again. Immediately, Alex wishes she could call a do-over on the last five seconds, but her wand is downstairs in the lair, and McCreary Time Reary won't work without it.

Justin's whole body flinches, as if she's actually struck him. Conscience winces in empathy. And even Max—whose head has been gleefully swinging back and forth between his siblings as though he were watching a tennis match—has the good grace to avert his eyes and tilt his chin down towards the table, as if suddenly finding the magically delicious marshmallow shapes in his cereal very interesting.

Alex waits for the inevitable explosion to follow-the furious spitting of random consonants, the uncontrolled shaking in rage that makes Justin look like an epileptic on a caffiene drip—but it never comes. Instead, his lips pressed into a taut, thin line, Justin calmly sets his toast and his knife down on the counter, and leaves the room in silence, without once meeting Alex's gaze.

"Sooooo, he's pissed," Max says finally, after they hear his bedroom door shut upstairs.

"Really?" Alex deadpans, looking up at the ceiling. "Because he sure hides it well."

"I don't really understand _why_ he's pissed, though," Max says around a mouthful of Lucky Charms. "I mean, I get that _you_ did something, that much is obvious, but I don't get _what_, exactly."

Alex shrugs as she takes a sip of her coffee. "I saved his life twice, then kept his girlfriend out of Monster Jail. Does that make me an unbelievable bitch, or what?"

"You're infringing on his manhood," Conscience says from the couch, without looking up from his lesson plan he's been preparing for Max. "So from his perspective, yes it does."

"Wait, what?" Max asks, horrified. He turns to gawk at Alex with a wide-eyed mixture of fear and disgust. "She's doing _what_ to Justin's wang?"

"What? No! I'm not doing anything with-I mean, to it!" Alex snaps, her face flushing deep crimson. "I've never even seen it, I swear!"

Conscience looks up sadly, and heaves a long-suffering sigh as he gently sets down his pen.

"No, you imbeciles," he says patiently. "I meant that by doing for him what Justin usually does for her, Alex has unintentionally called Justin's masculinity into question. That, combined with the beating he took from the wisp, has left him feeling weak and inadequate. And the fact that he's dating an immortal, super-powered vampire probably isn't helping things in that regard, either."

"Well, to me _that_ sounds an awful lot like Justin's been turned into a girl," Max says, "which again makes me wonder what exactly Alex did to his wang..."

"Stop being gross!" Alex growls, kicking Max in the shin under the table. As he yelps and leaps out of his seat, she turns to narrow her eyes at the back of Conscience's head. "Look, I'm not sure I buy all this deeply insightful, touchy-feely Doctor Phil crap coming from somebody who used to be a part of Captain Oblivious, here. Give me one good reason why should I believe you."

"Hey, believe me or don't," Conscience shrugs. "My responsibility begins and ends with Max. It's no skin off my back, either way...but why else do you think Justin has been sneaking down to the basement to work out in the middle of the night?"

"He _has?_ Dammit! I should have known he wouldn't give up that easily!"

"Every night this week," Conscience nods. "He's even set up some free weights and a bench press, out of sight under the stairs. I noticed them the other day, when I was trying to teach Max how to do his own laundry."

"Ooo yeah, important pro-tip there, by the way," Max volunteers. "Forgetting you have a dead lizard in your pocket when you throw your jeans in the wash? Baaaaaaad idea. Let's just say it doesn't end well...for the jeans, or the lizard."

"Ugh, but that's right where I was gonna set up my art studio!" Alex whines, stomping her foot impatiently, then heaves a heavy sigh. "Alright, Jiminy Cricket, so how do I fix this?"

"What, the lizard?" Max asks. "Oh, don't worry about it. A couple days to air out and little Krazy-Glu? He'll be good as new."

"With Justin, you moron!" Alex growls. "How do I fix things with Justin?"

"Uh, you don't?" Conscience scoffs, looking over his shoulder at her as though this should be obvious. "Anything you do to draw attention to it is only going to undermine him even further. Justin just has to work this out on his own."

And while 'ignore it, and it'll go away' is usually Alex's go-to solution to most problems, she still shakes her head sharply. "But he's pushing himself too hard! What if he overdoes it and hurts himself, again?"

"And you suddenly care, why?" Max asks. "I mean, isn't Justin hurting himself normally the kind of thing you find really, really funny?"

Alex scowls at him, but even as she opens her mouth to reply, Conscience beats her to it.

"Justin and Alex have a very complicated relationship, Max," he says, like he's explaining it to a five year-old. "Probably more complicated than even they understand."

And the knowing look he gives Alex as he says this actually makes Alex scoop up her coffee and flee the room without another word, retreating down the black spiral staircase into the Sub Station below. She can feel the weight of his gaze on her the whole way down, and it makes her cheeks burn.

So OK, Conscience knows. Or at least suspects. Which means that, on some level, Max suspects, too...or will, anyway, once Conscience finally gets put back inside him. (And ew, there's a mental image she didn't need.) Clearly, Conscience is going to have to go, one way or the other, because God forbid that one of them should tip Justin off.

Besides, there's no way she's gonna live with somebody giving her that look all the time, for the rest of her life. Seeing it in the mirror every day is bad enough.


	5. Chapter 5

**v.**

OK, so...new plan.

Alex always has a hard time pulling off the invisibility spell, which is the only reason why she doesn't use it way more often than she does. Justin's always been able to do it on the first try, because he's Justin and annoying that way, but Alex usually messes it up a half-dozen times before she gets it right. Either she makes herself disappear while her clothes stay visible (or vice-versa, which was really embarrassing for everybody that one time it happened in the lair during Wizard Lessons). Or she only makes herself invisible from the waist down, or whatever. It generally takes an hour or more of trying before she finally gets it down. And seriously, who has the patience for that?

The night that she first decides to spy keep an eye on Justin during his secret, late-night work outs, it takes fifty-three minutes, five tries, and a frightening glimpse in the mirror of what she'd look like without skin. So it's well after one in the morning before she's confident enough in her invisibility to sneak downstairs to the basement unseen.

Her Uggs make almost no noise at all as she creeps down three flights of stairs through the darkness of the loft and the Sub Station. It's only the hollow thud of her forehead striking that goddamned pipe on the basement landing that threatens to give her away. Biting back a curse as she blinks away stars, she looks around hurriedly, then breathes a sigh of relief. Though Justin is already there, running on the treadmill at a brisk pace, he stares straight ahead with grim determination, bass thumping through his earbuds, completely oblivious to the rest of the world.

Not wanting to push her luck, Alex tiptoes the rest of the way down the stairs anyway. She cuts a wide swath around him, picking her way carefully through the assorted junk that litters the basement. The bottom edge of her robe snags on their dad's old football phone, nearly pulling over the stack of cardboard boxes it rests on before Alex catches it at the last minute. Justin appears to catch the movement out of the corner of his eye and looks right at her. Her breath catches in her throat...but after a couple seconds, he frowns and kind of half-shrugs to himself, then goes back to staring into the middle distance ahead of him.

Alex exhales shakily, gathers her robe up around her waist, and crosses over to the old, beat-up rocking chair that Theresa used to nurse them in. She eases herself down into it, wincing at the way it creaks slightly beneath her. Again, though, Justin doesn't seem to notice, so she wraps her robe around her against the damp, chill air, and proceeds to watch him.

He's invested in proper workout gear in the past few weeks, it seems. His geeky Captain Jim Bob Sherwood tee and baggy grey sweatpants have been swapped for a black cutoff dri-fit shirt and matching blue shorts, and it's a huge improvement. Sweat glistens on his arms and legs as they pump away evenly, and mats his hair down to his forehead, where his eyebrows knit themselves together over his grey eyes in concentration. And now that his ankle has mostly healed, his stiffly exaggerated power-walking gait has smoothed itself into a much more natural-looking jog. It's still a little jerky and awkward, because it's Justin—he still brings his knees up ridiculously high with each stride—but at least he no longer looks like a drill sergeant leading the Dork Platoon on parade maneuvers.

So, not exactly poetry in motion, but...y'know, not entirely unpleasant to watch, either. In fact, if she pretends it's not Justin for a minute, tilts her head to the side and squints a little, it's even kinda...well, hot. Because, y'know, boy muscles rippling and breathy panting plus sweaty goodness, equals—

And clearly it's been way too long since she's had a boyfriend. Because...yeah.

Alex loses track of how long she watches Justin run. Gradually, the back-and-forth motion of his arms and legs, combined with the staccato rhythm of his footfalls on the treadmill and the gentle, thumping bass from his earbuds, lulls her into a kind of trance state. Half asleep, her head lolls to the side as she props her chin in her hand. The scent of him hangs heavy in the damp air, enveloping her, and causes a jumble of half-remembered images and sensations to cascade, dreamlike, through her mind...

_Justin grunting beneath her, arms flailing, as she bounces up and down atop him with only a couch cushion between them, scowling angrily but secretly loving every minute of the liquid, forbidden thrill it provokes in her. Skirt twirling around her as Frankie spins her into the air, high enough to show the world her very cutest boy-shorts, legs covered in gooseflesh from more than just the breeze, as Justin watches through the camera's viewfinder, determined to capture every second. Drumsticks moving in a blur almost by themselves in her fists, music thrumming like magic through her veins, as Justin's hand slides up and down the neck of his guitar, fingering it expertly, his grey eyes shining and face flushed with excitement as she launches into the chorus. Arms tight around her, breath hot in her ear, cheeks burning as she pretends to ignore the erection pressing through his pants into the small of her back, while the last embers of the fire burn out, and the jungle comes to life around them. Her heart aching in her throat, Justin looking ridiculously hot and hotly ridiculous in his stupid Wonder Twins duel outfit, lost and confused but resolute as she's ever seen him, blurred through stinging tears as he promises, without even knowing who she is, that he'll never, ever leave her..._

And then she comes awake with a start as the pounding of his feet and the whirring of the treadmill suddenly stop. Panting heavily, wiping his forearm across his forehead, Justin winces slightly as he steps off the treadmill, then heads for the bench press that's not-quite-hidden beneath the stairs. Shaking herself fully awake, Alex reaches down and draws her wand out from where it's tucked into her boot.

Showtime.

Laying down on the bench and positioning himself below the barbell, Justin reaches up to wrap his hands around the grip. Alex casts a quick glance at the weight, and frowns to herself. Granted, Justin could be stronger than he looks, and everything she knows about weightlifting could fit into a thimble with plenty of room left over. But that's never stopped her from jumping to conclusions before, and what he's about to lift looks crazy heavy.

Her fears are confirmed as Justin takes a deep breath, and slowly lifts the barbell up off the rack with a grunt. He doesn't drop it onto his chest immediately, as she was worried he might, but his arms tremble from the shoulders all the way up, and his complexion goes full-on Cherry Kool-Aid as he struggles to control it. Gradually, he begins to lower it towards his chest, exhaling in short, sharp bursts like he's about to give birth.

Idiot. It'd almost be funny to watch if it wasn't so recklessly dangerous. Shaking her head, she waits until he's brought the bar down to within inches of his chest and paused, then levels her wand at him. And even though the bass is still pumping through his earbuds, and his breathing is loud enough to wake the dead, she still takes care to mutter under her breath:

_"Though my brother's a dork and comics aren't real, let Justin pump iron like a true Man of Steel."_

(And yeah, Alex knows: it's not Batman. Justin would be so disappointed if he knew. But Alex tried, she genuinely did, and there's really only so many things you can actually rhyme with 'Darknight Detective' or 'Caped Crusader' and still have the spell come out the way you want it to. It was the best compromise she could come up with on short notice. And besides, let's face it, Justin's much too much of a goody-goody to be Batman, anyway. Superman is way more his speed.)

Although Alex's wand is as invisible as the rest of her, it still emits a small burst of red, yellow and blue, but if there's anything she can do about that, it hasn't come up in wizard lessons, yet. Fortunately, Justin is on the verge of popping about a half-dozen different blood vessels at the time, and doesn't even notice as the magic strikes him.

Almost immediately, though, his face pales from deep purple to merely crimson, and the trembling in his arms begins to subside as the spell takes hold. With a grunt, Justin pushes the barbell back up...and then blinks to himself at how easily he lifts it. Frowning, he lowers it again, in a much more controlled descent, then pushes it back up even easier than he did the first time.

Shaking his head, Justin sets the barbell back into the rack, tugs the earbuds out of his ears, and sits up on the bench. He begins peering around the basement suspiciously, a deep grimace etched into his features.

"Alex...?" he calls out uncertainly.

Alex holds her breath and sits perfectly still, not even daring to blink. Her stomach lurches as Justin's eyes pass through her twice, sweeping the basement from side to side. The second time, she's convinced she's been caught for sure. But finally, after a few moments, Justin snorts and shakes his head again.

"Nah, that's not it," he mutters to himself. "Think, egghead. Why the hell would she want to help me? If anything, she'd be trying to make it heavier. And taking pictures while I tried to lift it. And then posting them all over WizFace."

Alex fights the urge to throw something at his head. Oh, as if. Like she'd ever be caught dead logging on to WizFace...

Justin turns halfway round on the bench to look at the barbell, and shrugs to himself. "Maybe...maybe all this hard work is finally just starting to pay off, after all."

He allows himself a small, proud smile, then nods once and fits the earbuds back into his ears. Settling himself back down on the bench, he reaches up to push the barbell up off the rack, and begins to raise and lower it in time with the pounding bass of whatever it is he's listening to.

And, ta-da! Just like that: problem solved. Now Justin won't hurt himself, Alex won't get blamed for him pushing himself too hard, and everything can finally get back to normal. Because if there's a better way to restore Justin's confidence, to make him feel more like a manly man than he does right now, Alex doesn't know what it is.

(Well OK, there is one other sure-fire way—and the thought honestly has crossed her mind, if only for a fleeting second or two, not that she'll ever admit to it—but there are some lines that even Alex Russo doesn't dare cross. Not in practice, anyway. Besides, what would be the point of giving Justin his manhood back if an aneurysm killed him in the process?)

And yeah, so her history of using magic to solve problems isn't exactly stellar, she gets that, but she's actually thought this one all the way through for once. Sure, she's jacked up his strength a little—OK, _a lot_—but only specifically for weightlifting. What can possibly go wrong with that?

Feeling extremely satisfied with herself, Alex tucks her wand back into her boot, and stands up, stretching out the kinks the rocking chair has left in her back. She stifles a yawn with the back of her hand. It occurs to her that it was already pretty late when she left her room, and that she's been down here for God knows how long. With her mission accomplished, she'd be wise to sneak back upstairs and grab whatever few hours of sleep she can before she has to get up for school...

But then, wisdom has never exactly been Alex's strong suit, and with Justin being all bulging arms and heaving pecs and sweaty grunting...well, maybe it wouldn't hurt to hang out for a few more minutes and make sure the whole _Man of Steel_ thing really took, or whatever. A good invisibility spell isn't something that should go to waste, after all.

Grinning to herself, Alex wraps her robe tightly around her and settles back down into the rocking chair, pulling her knees up to her chest as she curls up in it. She gently rocks herself as she watches Justin, her mind wandering. Gradually, she drifts off to sleep again, wondering just what the hell that is that he's listening to, anyway...


	6. Chapter 6

**vi.**

Just over a month later, Justin walks up the black spiral staircase from the Sub Station, and announces to Alex and Juliet that he's just now accepted his first assignment as a full-fledged Monster Hunter. The look on his face as he says it gives Alex the impression that he might as well be setting the date for his own execution. And, God help him, he's dressed just like one of those two idiots she conned into taking Frankie and the robot to Monster Jail.

"A mummy?" Juliet asks, dumbfounded. "Are they _crazy?_ You're not even done the course, yet!"

Justin shrugs, and smiles uncertainly. "Just the way things work in the go-go world of monster hunting, I guess?"

"Gee, but if you turn pro, you won't be able to compete in the next Monster Hunting Olympics!" Alex deadpans.

Justin and Juliet both turn to give her a sour look.

"Justin, this is retarded," Alex sighs, rolling her eyes dramatically. "The only monsters you've actually managed to bag so far are a fake, sarcastic horse, and the two harmless dupes you made yourself, who were just hanging around the house, anyway. There's no way they can honestly believe you're actually ready for this."

"Hey!" Justin snaps, suddenly angry. "Who's got two thumbs and is wearing an official Monster Hunter's uniform, huh? This guy, right here. I've been training hard these past few weeks, OK? I'm ready."

Alex cocks a skeptical eyebrow at him as she looks him over...but she does have to admit, he looks pretty good. Oh, the outfit is simply awful—giving even the whole Wonder Twins wizard duel fashion nightmare a run for its money—but the way it shows off his newly-sculpted arms and just a hint of the definition in his chest is definitely—

OK, this is getting ridiculous. She really _does_ need to find herself a boyfriend.

"Besides," Justin continues, oblivious, "I'm...kind of the only thing standing between him and all of New York, right now...on account of all the other Monster Hunters having been, um...well, destroyed."

"By the mummy?" Juliet asks.

"You know, I never did get a clear answer on that..." Justin frowns thoughtfully, then shakes his head. "But it doesn't matter. Because Gotham City calls to me. The Batsignal has been lit. And I must answer."

"Oh, God," Alex groans, hanging her head. "Are we still on this whole stupid Batman kick? Seriously?"

"I'm going with you," Juliet says firmly.

Justin blinks at her. "What? No! Batman does not take his _girlfriend_ with him when he goes out on patrol!"

"Oh, really?" Alex snorts. "Tell that to Robin."

"For the last time, Alex, Robin is Batman's youthful ward, friend and trusted partner! They are not gay for each other!" Justin growls. Then, realizing how callously un-PC this sounds: "Uh, not that...y'know...there would necessarily be anything wrong with that..."

"Pfft, whatever. Read between the panels sometime, egghead," Alex says. "I mean, they named the guy 'Dick' for Christ's sake! Not a whole lot of subtext, there!"

"Alex, you don't even—wow, did you really just use the word 'subtext' correctly in a sentence?"

"Uh, hello!" Juliet interrupts, waving her arms to get their attention. "Not just any ordinary, run-of-the-mill girlfriend here, remember? Batgirl, anybody?"

And with that, Juliet holds her arms out to the side, where they suddenly morph themselves into a pair of massive bat wings, with a sound not unlike that of several ears of corn being shucked all at once. Alex and Justin grimace at her wordlessly as she beams back at them.

"Yeah, it still kind of disturbs me a little bit when you do that," Justin says quietly, after a moment.

"Uh, ditto," Alex nods. "Because, dude? Freaky."

"Fine," Juliet sighs, and barely a tremor of effort mars her features as she wills her limbs back into human form. "But I'm going, all right? No arguments. And for that matter, so is Alex. She can be...um...Wonder Woman? Hawkgirl?"

"Uh, our mom's really more the Hawkgirl type, actually..." Justin says.

"Please," Alex scoffs. "If I'm anybody, it's Catwoman."

"Isn't she more of a bad guy, though?" Juliet asks. "Like, an international jewel thief, or something?"

"I prefer to think of her more as a badass anti-heroine who doesn't let society's narrow definitions of 'right' and 'wrong' determine her moral code," Alex replies. "Plus, she looks hot in skin-tight black latex. So, y'know...win."

"Well, Selena Kyle does lean more towards chaotic-neutral, or maybe even chaotic-good, than straight-up evil, so you could make the argument—" Justin stops short and glares at his sister, as though she nearly tricked him into something. "Look, forget it. Juliet can come, but Alex stays here."

For a split-second, Alex's eyes go wide with rage as hurt and jealousy swirl together in the pit of her stomach and threaten to consume her from within. So what, suddenly he's totally fine with his stupid vampire girlfriend emasculating him, but not her? What the hell? It's not like Juliet has been getting by on four hours of sleep a night for the past month so she can make sure her _Man of Steel_ spell doesn't wear off at an inopportune moment while he does his juvenile bullshit macho workout thing...

(Because that's totally why she's been sneaking down there every night. Totally.)

But before it's too late, and she says or does something that she'll later regret, the calm, rational part of her—the part she doesn't listen to very often, the voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Justin's—intervenes, tamping down on her emotions and forcing her to adopt an air of bored nonchalance.

"Sure, works for me," she says, with a lazy half-shrug.

Because, duh, of course the dude wants to take his girlfriend along and leave behind his baby sister. Because that's what dudes do, and that's all Alex is to him.

Goddammit.

"Wait, what? Why on Earth wouldn't you want Alex to come?" Juliet asks, scowling at Justin like he's an idiot for wanting to leave her behind. And even though Alex kind of hates her right this second, she sort of loves her, too. "Justin, sweetie, no offense...but you kind of need all the backup you can get, on this one!"

"No, it's OK," Alex says, before Justin can protest. And she's honestly surprised at how evenly she manages to say it. "I can't go, anyway. I have to study."

And yeah, so even though it's at least partially true, she can appreciate how much that sounds like a lame excuse. But geez, is it so unbelievable that they have to stare at her with their mouths hanging open like that?

"Yes, that's right. I said I have to study," Alex sighs. "It's the first sign of the apocalypse. The plague of locusts is scheduled for Tuesday."

"Look, it's just a little recon at the museum, anyway," Justin says impatiently, holding out his hand for Juliet. "The mummy's not even going to be there. We don't need her."

Alex makes a point of idly studying her fingernails, and tries not to look as hurt as she feels.

"Well...OK," Juliet says, looking from Justin to Alex and back again as she tucks her hand into his. "I guess that doesn't sound too dangerous...and if Alex is too busy..."

"It isn't," Justin insists.

"And I am," Alex also insists, just a little bit harder.

"Fine. Let's go." Justin nearly pulls Juliet right off her feet as he tugs her towards the stairs that lead down into the Sub Station. Juliet giggles in surprise as she stumbles after him, and turns to wave goodbye to Alex over her shoulder before they disappear down the staircase, out of sight.

Alex waits until the sound of their footsteps on the metal stairs has died away, and counts off ten seconds in her head, before she spins on her heel and slams her fist into one of the pillows on the couch, as hard as she can. Again, and again, and again. It's only when she feels somebody's eyes on the back of her neck that she stops pummeling it, and turns around.

Conscience stands in the middle of the yellow staircase that leads upstairs, with a book under his arm, peering over the railing at her. She sets her jaw and narrows her eyes at him, daring him to say something.

"Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt," he says evenly as he comes the rest of the way down, as though walking in on her assaulting a pillow is the most normal thing in the world. "Just bringing Max his textbook so we can move on to the next chapter. He's flying through his remedial wizard homework like you wouldn't believe."

Great. So now that's two whole chapters Max will be ahead of her.

"Gee, I'm so thrilled," Alex says flatly, glaring at him. "You can't imagine how much. You're such a fantastic influence on him."

"Well, I do what I can," Conscience shrugs as he makes his way down the black stairs into the Sub Station. And the genuine humility inherent in it makes her want to punch his face in. As if sensing this, he pauses on the third step, then turns halfway around to fix her with a knowing look.

"For the what it's worth, I think you did the right thing, just now," he says, "There's an old saying: if you love somebody, set them free. If they really love you, they'll come back."

Alex blinks at him, then narrows her eyes even further as she crosses her arms below her breasts. "Dude, I have no clue what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't," Conscience says, with a condescending smile. "But if it makes you feel any better, Max has never once thought of what you and Justin have as being wrong. Or anything less than completely normal, even. In fact, I think he actually finds it kind of sweet."

Alex's expression doesn't change, even though she feels her stomach do a triple-backflip, and miss the landing.

"Granted, forty-eight states would disagree," Conscience continues with a shrug, "along with your parents and virtually everyone else you know...but hey, why let society's narrow definitions of 'right' and 'wrong' define your morality, right?"

Alex cocks an eyebrow at this, and snorts in surprise. "OK, I'll admit that it's been a while since I've actually seen _Pinocchio_, but I'm pretty sure that's not the kind of thing a conscience is supposed to come down in favor of..."

Conscience smiles kindly, and shrugs. "Well, the right things may seem wrong sometimes. Or sometimes the wrong things may be right at the wrong time. Or vice versa. Understand?"

"Uh...sure, if you say so, dude," Alex says uncertainly. "But somewhere, Walt Disney is spinning in his grave right now. That's all I'm saying."

"Oh, trust me, I know," Conscience says with a grin, as he starts back down the stairs. "You have no idea how true that is."

OK, so clearly that settles that. Creepy little mofo has definitely gotta go, and the sooner the better. Immediately, even. Certainly before Justin gets back from monster-baiting, or whatever. Because, dude, seriously. Max might be perfectly fine with the idea of...whatever...and sure, she can feel herself gradually edging towards a place in the not-too-distant future where she'd be OK with it, too. But Justin? Mister Lawful-Good himself? If Conscience so much as breathes a word of this to him, his head will literally explode.

Besides, what the hell? Max is already a real boy. What does he really need a conscience for, anyway?


	7. Chapter 7

**vii.**

So on the bright side, Conscience is gone. On the not-so-bright side, so is Juliet.

And while not that long ago, Alex would actually have seen that as being strictly win-win—well, at least for her, anyway—it breaks her heart to see Justin so angry and guilt-ridden over having handed his girlfriend over to become the mindless slave of a mummy. And man, as hard as he was on himself over that whole thing with the wisp, it's nothing compared to how badly he beats himself up for this.

Having made the vow to spend his every waking moment in pursuit of her, Justin starts skipping class—possibly for the first time in his life, ever—whenever he uncovers even the vaguest of leads on the mummy's whereabouts. After about two weeks, he stops going to school altogether and devotes himself to the search full-time, which Alex only finds out about when Mister Laritate calls her to his office to ask what's wrong with him.

"Mono," Alex lies, thinking quick on her feet as she pours two cups of coffee and hands one to the principal. "Just his luck, huh? Dude finally finds a girl desperate enough to actually make out with him, and she gives him cooties."

"Ah," Mister Laritate frowns, fiddling absently with his bolo tie, as though the idea of Justin making out with someone makes him vaguely uncomfortable. And for once, Alex can relate. "Well, I guess that explains why he's been looking so down in the mouth lately. Darn shame, though. He was on course to win the Perfect Attendance award at graduation this year. Would've been a real feather in his cap."

"Shyeah!" Alex scoffs into her coffee. "Sure it would."

"Can't be helped, I guess," Mister Laritate sighs, and he actually sounds so deeply disappointed that Alex has to force herself not to roll her eyes. "I'll rustle up Justin's teachers. We'll send you home with some sort of home-based study program for him. That way he won't lose the semester and can still graduate on time."

Amazingly, Jerry and Theresa go along with the ruse, allowing Justin to stay out of school for the time being as long as he keeps up with his home study. Which means that he's not only gotten out mortal school on top of Wizard Lessons now, but he's also turned Alex into his personal courier service, as she ferries assignments back and forth between him and his teachers at school. Truly, she lives in an unjust universe.

As far as Alex can tell, to keep up with his homework on top of his mummy-hunting, Justin starts to completely forego sleep altogether. He hunts by day, scouring the underworld, digging for clues—often literally, as most of his contacts and informants are technically undead, or "respirationally challenged" as they prefer to be called. By night he locks himself in his room or holes up in the lair, rushing through his homework and doing the bare minimum he feels he can get away with—which, because he's Justin, still earns him an A every time—so that he can devote himself to the study of old Monster Hunter texts and ancient lore on the combat and defeat of mummies. And by late-night, he continues to work out in secret in the basement, for hours on end, which is the only time Alex ever seems to sees him anymore.

Not that he sees her, of course. Twenty minutes is all it takes her to get the invisibility spell right, now. Still never on the first try yet, but she's definitely getting closer. At this rate she'll definitely have it down by Thanksgiving, assuming that Justin doesn't get himself killed by then.

Justin attacks the treadmill and free weights with a passion that Alex wouldn't have suspected him capable of. Not merely the clinical intensity with which he's approached everything, as long as she's known him, but an almost primal, animal ferocity. As if he's not just bettering himself for the struggle to come, but actually punishing himself for not being up to the challenge of yesterday.

Silent and invisible, she keeps watch over him, wand in hand, ready for the moment when he falters, when he finally hits the wall or runs out of gas, to give him the necessary boost to push through. But he never does, not once, no matter how hard or fast he pushes himself. He's being stupidly reckless, and she's pisssed at him for that, more than words can express...but she's oddly thrilled at the same time. Because it's usually Alex who's stupidly reckless, flaunting rules and logic and common sense, while Justin is the cautious, careful one, guarding against the moment that the whole house of cards collapses beneath them. And to have their roles so suddenly, radically reversed makes her feel closer to him, somehow. Like maybe they finally understand each other, or whatever.

And as much as it worries her—because, even with her _Man of Steel_ spell still in place, he is going way, way too hard—it also makes her tingle in places she ought not be tingling.

It's worst when he's on the floor, doing pushups or crunches, all straining and grunting and sweaty, and constantly making what she's convinced must be his 'O' face. She imagines what it must feel like to be under him, or over him—around him—running her hands over his arms, his chest, his ass, as he pistons in and out of her, driving himself deeper and deeper into her with every thrust. And she literally has to sit on her hands, pinning them between the rocking chair and the backs of her thighs, to keep them still.

But then...

One night, about three and a half weeks after Juliet's abduction, Mrs. Van Heusen makes a rare visit to the Sub Station just before closing time for an update on Justin's progress. And though Alex can't overhear their conversation from the counter, where she's trying to keep herself awake by pouring sugar into her palm and licking it off, the slump of Justin's shoulders and the way he bows his head as they talk tells her that she's in for long night.

She's not wrong. Though she gets the invisibility spell right in record time (17 minutes, rock!), he's already hard at it by the time she sneaks downstairs, wand held at the ready...and apparently, she's not the only one going a speed record, tonight. Justin's legs are practically a blur beneath him, his face a mask of pain, as the treadmill whirs beneath him as fast as she's ever seen it. Grimacing to herself, Alex picks her way through the boxes littering the basement towards the treadmill, risks getting close enough to him to get a peek at his speed, and gasps.

OK, this is _so_ not good.

"Jesus Christ, Justin. Are you fucking crazy?" she mutters to him, under her breath.

Fortunately, as per usual, he doesn't hear. The white cord leading from his iPod to his earbuds jiggles haphazardly as he pumps his arms, the music so loud that Alex can almost make out words for once, though they're strangely distorted, high-pitched and robotic. It's still maddeningly familiar, this song he's been listening to on an endless loop for weeks, now. But it's...off, somehow...and for the billionth time she struggles to place it. Leaning forward and cocking her ear towards his, she strains to pick out the lyrics, even a word or two that she can Google to narrow it down a bit. And she's so focused on what she's hearing that she really doesn't notice the way her gaze slides down the front of him, along his sweat-soaked shirt, and comes to rest somewhere near his midriff.

And that's when she sees it.

There's an odd flutter of movement in his shorts just a few inches below the waistband which draws her attention, distracting her from the music. It takes a few moments of squinting at it before Alex realizes with a start what she's seeing from this new vantage point: her brother's junk bouncing freely up and down with every step he takes. And it's kind of like watching a train wreck unfold, in that as much as she doesn't want to see it, at the same time it's so goddamned riveting that she absolutely cannot look away.

Oh, holy crap! How the hell has she never noticed that before?

Of course, now that she's seen it, she can't unsee it. Even when, after an eternity, she finally tears herself away from his side and goes back to her rocking chair. And even though she's not really seeing anything, it's still hotter than all the really good parts of every smutty romance novel she's ever skimmed through. Her cheeks burn, her legs twitch, and she desperately presses her thighs together to try and snuff the fire that she feels building between them, even though her boyshorts are soaked right through...

And though Alex fully intends to sit on her hands again, instead her thumbs hook themselves into the waistband of her flannel pants and underwear, and pulls them down to her knees. The seat of the wooden rocking chair feels deliciously cold against her bare bottom as she settles back down onto it. Without taking her eyes off her brother's bouncing member, she slips her left hand up under the hem of her T-shirt, sliding it up her stomach to cup her right breast, and rolls her taut nipple between her thumb and forefinger. Sighing with relief as much as pleasure, she holds her wand up to her mouth and whispers an old familiar incantation that sets it vibrating, then reaches down and presses the blunt end of it between her legs.

Alex inhales sharply and bites her bottom lip to keep from crying out, then lets her breath out slowly as she eases the handle of her wand in past her threshold. She can't help but grin at the illicit, electric thrill that pulses through her. It's not the first time she's done this, naturally—you give a power-infused, phallic object to a pubescent girl, and hey, sooner or later human nature and simple curiosity are gonna take hold—but she's rarely done it out in the open like this, and certainly never with Justin in the room. Even though she's invisible, the notion that she could be discovered by him at any given moment fills her with an urgency she's never felt before. That, combined with the sheer and utter wrongness of getting off to the sight of her brother's penis jiggling in his shorts as he pushes himself to the limit of his endurance and beyond, drives her to the brink faster than she ever would have thought possible.

Panting heavily, halfway certain that Justin can hear the subtle _squish squish squish_ of her wand sliding in and out of her, even over the pounding bass of his music, Alex drives it up as deep as she can into herself, pressing it against her g-spot, then moans aloud as she bursts around it. She presses her head into the back of the rocking chair as her spine arches into her orgasm, the rubber heels of her Uggs skidding against the concrete floor as her toes curl inside them. Fireworks explode behind her eyelids as her entire body shudders, then stills, all except for the throbbing of her pulse in her ears, and her throat, and her clit.

The euphoria she feels lasts for maybe a minute or two at most before the guilt sets in.

Swallowing hard, Alex exhales shakily and opens her eyes. Justin is still running full-bore on the treadmill, completely oblivious as he stares straight ahead, features contorted in agonized determination. He might as well be staring straight at her in disgust. Looking down at the floor, Alex hunches her shoulders and slips her wand out of herself as silently as possible, then reaches down and hitches her pants back up. She absently wipes off the handle of her wand on off the hem of her T-shirt, then reaches down and tucks it into her boot.

God, she has never felt so dirty. And not in a good way, either. Here her brother is practically openly flagellating himself out of guilt and heartbreak and self-loathing, and she's using it as wank fuel? In the same chair their mother used to rock them to sleep in as babies? Alex has always been proud to consider herself a little bit of an evil genius, but this... this is too sick and twisted, even for her.

She wants to run away, hurl herself up the stairs to cry, to throw up, to hide beneath her covers and pretend it didn't happen. But instead, she stays right where she is. Because tonight is the night Justin may actually need her most, and she absolutely refuses to abandon him. He certainly wouldn't abandon her.

This whole other thing with him, though? That has to stop, pronto. It is definitely long past time she found herself a boyfriend, if only to get Justin off her fucking mind, already.

There _is_ that new English dude in art class, the one who's been eyeing her every time he thinks she's not looking for the past couple weeks. He's not Justin by any means, but his accent is cute, and he's got the whole art thing going for him. Plus, y'know...somebody decidedly not-Justin is probably exactly what she needs right now.

Alex nods to herself as she sits on her hands again, and keeps her eyes rooted to the concrete floor before her. Yeah, OK. Cute English artsy kid. She can work with that. 


	8. Chapter 8

**viii.**

Nine days later, Mason stares at her, wide-eyed and dumbfounded, as Alex shoves him back against her bed and quite literally pounces on him. She feels his arms wrap awkwardly around her as she nips at the pulse point to the right of his throat, just beneath his jawbone, then presses her lips to it and begins to suck, fully intending to mark him as her own. And she totally does not wonder, in the back of her mind, if Juliet ever does this to Justin, because it seems like such a vampire thing to do.

"Wow, I'd heard American girls moved fast, but I didn't know they meant _this_ fast!" Mason says, sounding a little breathless. "Er, is this still part of the whole 'whirlwind romance' montage, then?"

Alex chuckles despite herself, and releases her lips from his throat with a wet smack as she sits up, straddling him.

"New montage," she says, grinning evilly down at him as she flips her hair over her shoulder. "Only this one involves a lot more Vaseline on the lens, and bow-chikka-bow-bow music."

"Bow-chikka-bow—?" Mason frowns up at her in confusion, clearly not getting the reference. Understanding dawns across his face a moment later, though, when Alex's hands set to work on undoing his belt. "Oh! Well, then...I do think I'm going to enjoy America."

"Dude, you ain't just whistlin' Dixie," Alex smirks, as she pulls down his fly and slips her hand into his jeans.

Because, seriously...Justin who?


	9. Chapter 9

**viv.**

Three weeks pass, and Alex finds herself pacing the length of the counter in the Sub Station, still desperately trying to crack her knuckles even though they stopped cracking ten minutes ago, a nervous habit she's picked up from Jerry. She glances anxiously to her right at the pass-through into the kitchen, where her father is hurriedly making a giant ham, provolone and swiss hoagie the size of his thigh. Biting her lip, she looks over to her left into the subway car across the restaurant, where Theresa puts the finishing touches on the floral arrangement she's mounted on the wrought-iron headboard they've set up to serve as a fancy privacy screen. Harper, meanwhile, dressed as a waiter, sets the table in front of it for a romantic dinner-for-two. Huffing impatiently, Alex fishes her cell phone out of the pocket to check the time, then stomps the heel of her boot on the floor.

"Guys! Could we please get a move on? He's going to be here any minute!" she snaps.

"Relax, honey," Jerry calls from the kitchen, smiling as he sets down a layer of sliced tomato. "I know you're nervous, but everything's going to be just fine."

"Fine? Don't give me fine!" Alex growls. "We're curtains up in less than five minutes, and the leading lady isn't even on her mark yet because the stagehands won't get the lead out! YOU'RE BEING NEWARK, PEOPLE! I NEED BROADWAY!"

In the subway car, Theresa and Harper both stop what they're doing to exchange glances, then fix her with identical dirty looks.

"Y'know, you _could_ help," Theresa points out. "This is _your_ anniversary, after all."

"Ohhhh, I'm too nervous," Alex sighs, slumping against a stool as she tries to crack her knuckles again. "Besides, you know I'm deathly allergic to...y'know...whatchamacallit?"

"Work?" Jerry volunteers.

"Yeah, that's it," Alex nods, pointing at him. "Seriously, you want I should break out in hives before the biggest date of my entire life?"

"Wow," Harper grins, as she crosses the floor towards her, to fetch the bottle of sparkling cider that's chilling in a bucket on the counter. "I don't think I've seen you this worked up over somebody since Riley. You really like this boy."

Alex looks down at the toes of her boots, and shrugs noncommittally. But the truth of the matter is that she _does_ like Mason. Likes him a _lot_, actually. They've only been officially dating for a month, but already she feels way, way closer to him than she ever did to either Riley or Dean. She never in a million years would have pegged her ideal boyfriend as being 'primly British, and a shade on the scrawny side', but hey, it is what it is. He's just about her perfect match in every way. (Well, except for his whole weird 'dog painting fetish' thing, but hopefully that's just a phase.)

And that's why she's decided that tonight's the night they're going to go all the way, even if Mason doesn't know it, yet.

Alex feels her stomach lurch at the thought in nervous anticipation, and smiles furtively. She's got it all planned out: Harper will be busy clearing after them, Mom and Dad will have their hands full with the dinner rush, and Max and...her other brother...will be out doing whatever the hell it is they've been doing every night after school for the past month. Nobody will even give it a second thought if Alex and Mason slip upstairs to be alone. She'll lure him out onto the terrace to watch the sunset, kiss that spot on his neck that turns him to putty in her hands—albeit hard, throbbing, engorged putty—and then, as the stars come out and the moon rises above them, it'll happen. And by the time everybody else drags their tired butts back up the loft to find them cuddled up on the couch, watching a movie as if nothing happened, Alex Russo won't be a virgin anymore.

And OK, so maybe she's only still a virgin in the most technical sense, but still, it's a big deal. Which accounts for all the pacing, and knuckle-cracking, and the mutant dire moths that have apparently taken up residence in the pit of her stomach. It's not every day that a girl gives up her cherry, after all.

(And she absolutely doesn't feel even the merest pang of regret that she's not giving it to the person who she's been saving it for all along, if only subconsciously. Because, seriously...unrealistic, much?)

"Uh, hey Alex?" Harper calls from the subway car, breaking into her reverie. "Didn't you say you wanted music for this thing? I don't see a CD player or a radio, or anything..."

"Oh, dammit, you're right!" Alex says, slapping her forehead. "I set up a playlist on my iPod, but I forgot to stea—uh, borrow—Justin's dock from his room! I'll go grab it and be right back. If Mason shows up, stall him, OK?"

"And how do you want me to do that?" Harper asks, sounding vaguely panicked.

"I don't know, Harper!" Alex says, as she runs for the stairs, taking them two at a time. "Just...ask him which dog breeds he would paint all the founding fathers as, or something. That should keep him busy for a good twenty minutes."

"What, seriously?" she hears Jerry ask from below as she spirals up into the loft. "Harper, who is this freaky kid who's dating my daughter?"

Breathing heavy and feeling dizzy by the time she reaches the third floor, Alex stumbles down the hall towards Justin's room. Alright, so maybe faking cramps all the time to get out of gym is working against her, a little. Slumping against the wall outside his door, she reaches down to retrieve her wand from her boot, then aims it haphazardly at the knob.

"Look, I'm way too beat to come up with a rhyme, right now," she wheezes, "so whatever spells Justin's put on this to keep me out, just undo 'em, you dig?"

There's a pregnant pause, during which nothing seems to happen, but then the end of her wand flares bright pink and the lock on Justin's door clicks, as though the laws of physics and probability have merely shrugged and said 'Close enough.' Sighing gratefully, Alex holsters her wand in her boot, throws open the door, and lurches into the room. Glancing around, she finds the iPod dock sitting on the nightstand next to his crisply-made bed, with his iPod charging in it. And instantly, all thoughts of Mason are forgotten as months of curiosity seize her.

What the hell is that song he's been listening to on repeat as he's worked out all this time?

Crossing the room in three strides, Alex snatches the iPod up out of the dock, and presses her thumb down on the click wheel. Its tiny screen flares to life, and she scrolls down through the menu it displays. Clicks on Playlists, then 25 Most Played. And there, finally, at the top of the list...

"_Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger_?" she says out loud, incredulous. "Dude, seriously? That's like the title of a bad European porn from the seventies!"

"What the hell are you doing in here?"

Alex starts so violently at the sound of Justin's voice that she drops his iPod. He scowls at her from the doorway as it bounces on the carpet.

"Jesus Christ, Justin! You scared the shit out of me!"

"Yeah, I'll bet I did," he grunts angrily. Dressed in his Monster Hunter's uniform—as he always seems to be, lately—he advances towards her, then stoops down to pick his iPod up off the floor. He turns it from side to side as he stands back upright, inspecting it for damage. "How'd you get past my security wards, Alex?"

"With surprisingly little to no effort at all, actually," she says, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. "You're slipping in your old age."

Justin glares at her for a moment, then places his iPod back on the dock, apparently satisfied that she hasn't broken it. "Hardly. Contrary to what you believe, Alex, everybody's world does not revolve around you. I've had more important things on my mind, lately."

Alex juts her chin out at him angrily, then jerks her head towards his iPod. "Like late-seventies Euro-porn soundtracks, for instance?"

Justin blinks at her, confused for a moment, then grins as he realizes what she's talking about. "Oh wait, I get it. Have you really never heard of Daft Punk?"

"Um, duh! Of course I have!" Alex scoffs, even though she hasn't the foggiest. Because she is so not admitting that he knows something she doesn't. She repeats the name to herself three times in her head, though, to make it stick, because she is so Googling that shit later.

"Uh-huh," Justin snorts, clearly not convinced. "What do you want with my iPod, anyway? I thought you hated the music I listen to. Or have your tastes actually matured beyond Hilary Duff and Hannah Montana?"

"OK, first of all, I haven't listened to Hilary Duff since I was, like, twelve," Alex says, blushing. "Second, I have never listened to that poser bitch Hannah Montana. You're thinking of Mikayla—who rocked, by the way—but who I also have not listened to since I was about 14. And third, I could care less about your stupid iPod, it's the dock I'm after. I have a date with Mason, and a very special playlist to accompany it, which I uncharacteristically spent quite a bit of time putting together!"

"Oh, wow," Justin chuckles, shaking his head at her. "Really? You made a mix tape for your widdle boyfriend? How precious."

"Oh, like you haven't made, like, a kajillion playlists for Juliet since the mummy took her?" Alex snarls. She reaches for his iPod again. "Here, Captain Emo, let's see how many..."

"That's none of your business!" Justin shouts, slapping her hand away. "Forget it. You can't have my dock."

"Why not?" Alex demands. "It's not like you're using it! It's just sitting here!"

"And it can continue to just sit here, because it's mine and I said so," Justin says, crossing his arms over his chest. And Alex so totally does not notice how much bigger and more defined his arms look now. "You need one? Get your own."

"But Mason's going to be here, like, _now!_" Alex whines, stomping her foot impatiently. "Look, I promise I'll actually bring it back, OK? Can't you just do me a solid here, this one time?"

"So you can have a soundtrack to your sloppy makeouts with that Greyback kid? Yeah, I don't think so. So very not interested in helping him hit a triple off my little sister, thanks."

Alex jerks back a little at this in surprise, and not just because he's correctly deduced her intent, even if he is a base shy.

"_'That Greyback kid'_?" she parrots at him. "What, do you have a problem with Mason, or something? Or just with the idea of seeing me happy for once?"

Justin rolls his eyes, then turns away from her, heading for his closet. "Alex, just get out, alright? I really don't have time for this, right now."

"No seriously, which is it?" Alex asks, coming up behind him as he slides open his closet door and begins rummaging inside. "I thought you'd be happy I was dating Mason. I mean, he's the one boyfriend I've had you might actually have a chance in hell of intimidating..."

His head in the closet, Justin snorts loudly. "Sure, if I came at him with a rolled-up newspaper, maybe. Hey, did you take my snorkeling gear?"

"Rolled up news—?" Alex frowns and gives her head a shake. "Snorkeling gear? Justin, what's up with the non-sequitors? You sound like Max, for crying out loud!"

Justin glances over his shoulder at her, surprised. "Wow, bonus points for your correct use of the word 'non-sequitor'. Who knew playing tonsil-hockey with an English guy would actually improve your grasp of the language? Listen, do you have my snorkeling stuff, or not?"

Before she can ask him what he needs it for, Max lurches into the room wearing it, rubber flippers slapping against the hardwood floor with each exaggerated step, his diving mask completely steamed over. He runs headlong into Justin, nose bouncing off his older brother's chest, before he stops in his tracks and holds up a harpoon gun and fishing net in either hand.

"Ready whenever you are, big guy!" he announces proudly.

Alex looks from her older brother to her younger one, and back again. "OK, I have to ask: what gives with Scuba Steve, here?"

"Max," Justin sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and using his overly-patient voice again. "We're going to confront the mummy in his undersea minion storage cave, not guest-starring on _The Deadliest Catch_."

"Well duh, yeah," Max grunts. "Why else do you think I brought the net?"

"Wait, so now you're bringing Max on these little hunting expeditions of yours?" Alex asks in disbelief. "Really?"

"Yeeeeah," Justin says, as though he can't quite believe it himself, then shrugs. "The whole sea cave thing is his lead, actually. Besides, like Juliet said, I need all the backup I can get, and beggars can't be choosers."

"Uh, guys? I'm standing, like, right here," Max frowns.

Alex gives him a sideways look, but otherwise ignores him.

"You've never once begged me," she says to Justin, quietly. "Or even asked, for that matter."

"Yeah, well...you haven't exactly been around to ask, anyway," Justin says, with an odd, unfamiliar edge to his voice. "You've been so busy with Limey McBritishpants, I've barely seen you at all over the past few weeks."

Alex grimaces at this. It's true, and not just due to her judicious use of the invisibility spell, either. She hasn't snuck down to watch him work out in secret for nearly as long as she's been dating Mason. It felt too much like she was cheating on him, somehow. As guilty as she feels for having stopped, she can't help but feel that the guilt she'd feel if she kept up with it would be even worse. Besides, her _Man of Steel_ spell seems to have held up on its own just fine, without any reinforcement, and it's not like Justin ever really needed her anyway, as he's so fond of pointing out. If she's honest with herself, she really just liked the idea of being there for him, for a change.

(Well, that's the main reason, anyway. Sure, there were other...perks...but, yeah.)

But she has someone else to be there for, now. Someone she can actually, y'know, be with. Without breaking all kinds of laws in the process. Not that she's ever felt beholden to any law in particular—or seen them as little more than vague guidelines, really—but there are some lines you just don't color outside of.

She doesn't say any of this out loud, of course. Because, duhr, how can she? Instead she plays to her strengths, and dodges the question entirely by going on the attack. For her, the best defense has always been a good offense.

"Limey McBritishpants?" Alex snorts, narrowing her eyes at him. "Wow, that was almost snarky enough for me to have come up with it. You really _do_ have a problem with Mason, don't you?"

"Not as long as he makes you happy," Justin says, a little too quickly, as though he's rehearsed it. "That's all that really matters."

"But...?" Alex probes, jutting her chin out at him.

Justin sighs, and rolls his shoulders uncomfortably. "I just don't think you know him as well as you think you do. Or probably should."

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Alex frowns.

"Just that you should be careful with him," Justin says. "I'd hate to see you make the same mistakes I've made, is all."

"Well, I don't have any plans to get him kidnapped and enslaved by a mummy, if that's what you're trying to say," Alex says angrily.

"Uh, speaking of which?" Max interjects, oblivious to the hurt that appears on Justin's face in response to Alex's jibe. "As much fun as your whole weird slap-slap-kiss thing is for me to watch, usually, it's kind of getting in the way of me finding something to shoot a harpoon at. Which I really, really want to do today, by the way. So if we could maybe wrap this up, here...?"

Justin and Alex glare at each other silently over his head, the hurt and anger each is feeling reflected in the other's eyes. Was it really just a few weeks ago that she felt they might finally understand each other? Because right now, she feels like they've never been farther apart.

"Max and I have to get going, Alex," Justin says, breaking the silence and gesturing pointedly to the door. "So if you could...?"

"Fine," she practically spits at him, then spins on her heel and heads for the door. "I'll get out of your way."

"Look, you can take the dock if you really want to," he calls after her, in a lame attempt to make it better. "We both know you're just going to come back and steal it after I'm gone, anyway."

"Bite me, jerk," she hurls over her shoulder at him as she stomps down the hallway away from him.

But then she surprises herself by hesitating at the top of the stairs, one hand on the railing, and exhales heavily.

"Be careful," she says in a tiny voice, without turning around, just loud enough for him to hear.

"You too," he says quietly, his own voice choked with emotion.

Fighting the urge to look at him, Alex merely nods once and hurries down the stairs, reaching up to wipe away a single tear as she hits the main floor of the loft and continues on down into the Sub Station. Below, she can hear Mason making awkward conversation with her father, trying to make him understand why Ben Franklin would be best represented as a border collie. Grinning to herself, she quickens her pace and practically flies down the last few steps, into his waiting arms.

Justin's wrong for once. Mason is _so_ the one for her. Once she breaks him of this whole dog fetish thing, he'll be perfect, and they'll be together forever.


	10. Chapter 10

**x.**

OK, so clearly she's not going to break Mason of the whole dog thing, after all. Which only goes to show: as much as you think you might, you really can't change a guy.

No, apparently only a full moon can manage that.

Glancing up at it through the swaying treetops of the forest, Alex reflects on what an odd couple days it's been. Yesterday, she was halfway convinced that her boyfriend was a low-down dirty cheater (or possibly an international jewel thief with the feds on his tail). Today, he's a werewolf, using his keen canine sense of smell to track the scent of her brother's vampire girlfriend to the lair of the mummy who's held her captive all these months, from a piece of lovingly preserved dental floss.

And as much as she lives in fear of the day that she loses the wizard competition to Justin, and has to give up magic forever to become a boring old mortal, there's at least a small part of her that's actually looking forward to the quiet. Because, seriously, there's really only so much weirdness that one life can be expected to hold.

Leaning against the tree next to her, Justin follows her gaze to where its branches sway in the evening breeze. "Did you know that Transylvania is literally Latin for 'across the forest'?"

"If that's true, and Mason keeps stopping to pee on every tree he sees, then this is gonna be a really long walk," Alex sighs. Turning her head to the side to peer at the bush her boyfriend disappeared behind, she catches a glimpse of Max gleefully undoing his fly out the corner of her eye.

"Well, when in Romania," he grins,"make Romanade!"

"Hey, knock it off!" Alex snaps, reaching out to smack him upside the head. "We're standing right here!"

"Ow! Watch it! You almost made me whiz all over my church shoes!"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Max! Gross!" Alex gags, stalking away from the tree as Max lets loose with a steady stream all over its roots. Justin leaps out of the way of the resulting puddle as it starts to creep its way towards him, then jogs after Alex and lays a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, go easy on Mason, huh?" he says, stopping her in her tracks. "He can't help himself. He's just marking his territory. It's a biological imperative for male werewolves."

"Yeah, I can see that," Alex says, glancing down at the glowing heart pendant hanging from her neck. She smiles. "I guess in my case I should be glad he did it with enchanted jewelry, huh?"

"It _is_ very pretty," says Justin, if a little begrudgingly. "I'm glad he makes you happy, Alex."

"Oh, what's this? Is somebody suddenly onboard Team Mason?" Alex teases, elbowing him in the ribs. "I should have known you'd come around once you found out he was a freak, just like every girl _you've_ ever dated."

"Ha-ha," Justin says flatly, rolling his eyes. "I love how, even when I try to be supportive, you turn it into a dig at me."

"It's a gift," Alex says. She elbows him again, to show she's just playing, before her grin fades a little. "Seriously, though, you knew before I even told you, didn't you?"

He raises his eyebrows in askance. "Knew...?"

"That Mason was a werewolf," Alex explains. "That's why you had such a problem with me dating him, right? I mean, you didn't seem even a little bit surprised when I told you."

"Well, no," Justin says with a shrug. "I've kind of known for few weeks, actually."

"Wait, _weeks?_" Alex stares at him wide-eyed. "As in multiples of seven days? How the hell—?"

"Uh, hello? Monster Hunter?" Justin says flatly. He hooks his thumbs into his vest and tugs on it emphatically. "My detector practically went apeshit the first time he came by the loft to pick you up. It wasn't hard to figure out why. I _do_ kind of know what to look for."

"But then why didn't you turn him in to the Monster Hunters' Council?" Alex asks, flabbergasted. "Isn't that, like, your job now?"

"I dunno," Justin sighs, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair. "I kept meaning to bring him in, but he's honestly small potatoes compared to tracking down the mummy and getting Juliet back. I figured I'd get around to it, eventually."

"And when the hell were you gonna clue me in?" Alex hisses, struggling to keep her voice down so Mason won't here. "He's my boyfriend, for Christ's sake! I mean, I came _thisclose_ to sleeping with him last week! What if he'd, like, wolfed out in the heat of passion, or whatever? Do you have the kind of money to pay for the ridiculous amounts of therapy I'd need after that?"

Justin frowns deeply, his entire body stiffening. "Wait, you almost slept with Mason?"

"Would have, if he hadn't kept running off at the slightest mention of sunset," Alex says bitterly, then lightly backhands her brother's arm. "Which has had me sick with jealousy, by the way, because I'd convinced myself he was seeing another girl on the side. So there's two whole weeks of mental anguish I have to thank you for..."

"Well, what did you want me to do? Just drop it into casual conversation over dinner? _'Hey Alex, by the way: your new boyfriend? Turns out he's a furry. Pass the butter, please?'_"

Alex grimaces at this. "A furry? What the hell is a furry? Is that some kind of Monster Hunter jargon, or something?"

"No, it's—nevermind, you don't even wanna know," Justin says, waving one hand dismissively. "My point is, you really liked him, you guys started getting serious, and I'd gone so long _without_ telling you by that point that I just didn't know how to break the news to you without it...y'know, hurting you."

Justin looks down at his right foot, and begins scuffing it back and forth in the dirt on the forest floor, looking almost embarrassed. And as exasperated as she is, Alex can't help but smile a little at how adorable he is. God, but he can such an absolute doll, sometimes...

"So I figured I'd just keep an eye on him for awhile," Justin continues after a second. "Make sure he wasn't dangerous. Wait to see if he'd do the stand-up guy thing, and tell you himself. Which he did, so..."

Alex narrows her eyes at him as he trails off. "So...you actually put my happiness before your responsibilities as a Monster Hunter?"

"I...guess you could say that, sure," Justin says hesitantly, drawing circles in the dirt with the toe of his boot.

"Oh. Wow," Alex says quietly in response. Because that is so not Justin. At least, not lately.

"Although you could also say," he adds quickly, without looking up, "that maybe part of me was just waiting for him to kiss you, so I could watch you turn into a werewolf yourself, and have to be dunked in that awful goop to turn back." He finally glances up at her through narrowed eyes. "Because you just thought it was _so damned funny_ when it happened to me."

Alex's eyes and mouth form three perfect circles. Oh holy crap, she forgot about that! Arms flailing, she reaches up quickly to feel the tip of her nose, making sure it's not cold and wet, then starts inspecting herself frantically for hair that wasn't there this morning.

"Relax," Justin chuckles. "It doesn't seem to be taking, for some reason...which just burns me up to no end, let me tell you."

Alex lowers her arms and glares at him for a moment, then simply shrugs it off. Because, _that's_ Justin, right there. And hey, it's not like she'd do any different if she were in his shoes. It's kind of how their relationship has always worked, after all. Well, up until recently, anyway.

"Hey listen," she says, as a sudden thought strikes her, "you don't think Mason's one of the monsters that Max conjured up from the manual, do you?"

"I've wondered about that, actually," Justin admits. "There _is_ a listing for werewolves. And, I mean, the timing's right. He did start at Tribeca Prep at about the same time, so..."

"Yeah, I was just thinking that," Alex mutters. "He's not all rampagey like the other ones that came from the book, though..."

"Not _yet_, he's not," Justin says pointedly. "But just because something hasn't happened is no guarantee that it won't. Sure, Mason seems like a sweet guy now, but werewolves are unpredictable. Impulsive. He's still technically a monster, Alex."

"So is your vampire girlfriend, Justin," Alex retorts, "who Mason is selflessly helping us track down, by the way, after months of you and Max coming up with sweet eff all."

"And I'm grateful, believe me," Justin says solemnly. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to let my guard down."

"What exactly are you guarding against?" Alex asks, rolling her eyes skyward. "God, Justin...Mason loves me, OK? He's not going to hurt me. _I_ trust him, and I barely trust anybody. Why can't you?"

The way Justin smiles at her looks odd and unfamiliar in the moonlight and shifting shadows of the rustling leaves above. He reaches his hand towards her slightly, as though he intends to lay it on her arm or her shoulder, or something...but instead, he hesitates, and drops it back down to his side.

"Look, just call it big brother's prerogative," he says, his voice sounding strangely tight and throaty. "You know that no guy is ever going to be good enough for you in my eyes, right?"

Oh. Well, there's something she never expected to hear him say.

And though it's not exactly what she's secretly been longing to hear for as long as she can remember—even if she won't admit it to herself—and though it comes weeks too late, it still causes tears to spring to her eyes, and lump to appear in her throat.

"Justin," she says, "I—"

"Sorry about that!" Mason cuts her off as he comes bounding up to them, taking Alex's hand in hers. "Took me awhile, but all these back here are done. Now we can...er..."

He breaks off with a frown, and starts to sniff the air in front of him, leaning towards the tree they were just standing against.

"Er, sorry...but has Max just piddled on that one over there?" he asks.

Justin and Alex exchange glances, then sigh and nod sadly.

"Oh, well..." Mason says uncomfortably. "Then I'm afraid I'll have to, uh...that is...if you lot wouldn't mind just moving off over there towards that castle for a moment...? I think that's where the trail's leading us, in any case..."

"We understand," Justin says, taking Alex by the wrist and gently leading her away. "Take your time."

"Yeah," Alex smiles over her shoulder. "But, y'know, hurry OK?"

Mason grins at her gratefully, then bounds around to the the other side of the tree trunk, bending forward and wrinkling his nose as he sniffs at the spot Max peed on. Alex gets the distinct impression that if he had a tail, it would be wagging furiously right now. Then it occurs to her that, for all she knows, he might _have_ a tail, after all.

"Ugh," Alex says, hopefully quietly enough that Mason doesn't hear. As Justin pulls her towards the castle, she glances down at the hand Mason was holding, and makes a face as she wipes it off on the leaves of a passing bush.

"OK, note to self: start carrying wet-naps," she says, shaking her hand off. "Clearly there's a few things about dating a werewolf that are gonna take some getting used to."

"Oh trust me, little sister, you don't know the half of it," Justin sighs, dropping her arm as they reach the castle's drawbridge, then bites his bottom lip as he crosses his arms over his chest. "So, uh, listen...did you really almost sleep with Mason?"

Alex's head comes up as she gapes at him in surprise.

"Uh...yeah, no," she says, flushing slightly as she looks away and shakes her head. "We're not talking about that."

"But does that mean you two have done, um, everything but?" Justin asks, his voice raising an octave.

"Dude, seriously. _So_ not having this conversation with you. Not now, not ever."

"Hey, you were the one who brought it up! I just wanna know—"

"Fine," Alex cuts him off. "You first, then: how far have you gone with Juliet?"

Justin's mouth closes abruptly with a click of his teeth. His eyes dart away, across the forest, as he reaches up to scratch the side of his neck furiously, without saying a word.

"Exactly," Alex glares at him, the reflection of her enchanted pendant lending her eyes a sinister red glow. "Not. Talking. About it. _No hablar de ello. Comprende?_"

"Agh, you're mixing Spanish with Italian again," Justin groans, as though it were unforgivable, scrubbing his eyes tiredly with both hands.

"Yeah well, that's just how I roll," Alex snaps. "Deal with it."

"What's up, guys?" Max asks as joins them on the drawbridge, zipping up his fly in the process. He looks from his brother to his sister and back, taking in the awkward tension hanging in the air between them. "Oh sorry, did I just interrupt another one of your weird slap-slap-kiss things? Because I can go water another tree if you wanna take a minute to finish yelling at each other and hug it out, or whatever..."

"Stay put," Justin growls. "It's late enough as it is. The last thing we need is for you and Mason to get into a literal pissing match."

"Woah, hold the phone...is that, like, really a werewolf sport?" Max asks excitedly. "Because, even without knowing what it is, I would so totally buy season tickets for that. Do you think Mason will take me?"

"Shut up, Max," Alex and Justin say in the same breath, without looking at each other.


	11. Chapter 11

**xi.**

It turns out Justin is right, surprising no one: Mason, it seems, is a dog in more ways than one.

Heartbroken, Alex hugs her pillow tightly as she tosses and turns, playing the night's events over and over again in her head: the lame, anticlimactic not-fight with the mummy in his lair; the discovery and freeing of Juliet; the sweet reunion of Justin with his (gag) Shnuggly Boo-Boo McCutiekins; the unexpected yet awkward discovery that she and Mason used to date, like, three centuries ago...

And, oh yes, Mason's sudden declaration of undying love for Juliet, right in front of Alex. That was the real show-stopper, right there. Brought the house down. _And cue the applaaaaauuuse!_

Jesus Christ. Of all the werewolves in all the cities in all the world, Alex manages to pick up _the one_ who's Juliet's sloppy seconds? What were the odds? OK, so Mason was always saying that he didn't believe in luck, that destiny worked in strange ways, but sweet holy fuck... did destiny have it in for her, or what?

And OK, maybe Mason did kinda sorta start out as a bit of a rebound thing—a way to distract herself from the naughty!bad feelings she was beginning to have for her brother, no less—so yeah, there was a certain irony there. Maybe destiny felt she had it coming. But wasn't it enough that Juliet already had her fangs into Justin? Did she have to take Mason away from her, too?

Sniffling into her damp pillowcase, Alex dimly becomes aware of the soft, pink light filtering into the room through her curtains, and the chirping of a few distant birds. Raising her head slightly, she squints at her alarm clock. Almost 5:30. She hasn't slept a wink all night. And though she normally stays in bed until well after noon most Saturdays, clearly this is a lost cause, and she could use a change of scenery, anyway.

Throwing her blankets aside, she drags herself out of bed, pulls off her pajamas, and gets dressed entirely on auto-pilot, without even really paying attention to what she's putting on. She really should shower—she still has last night's trek through the Transylvanian forest all over her—but to hell with it. She pulls her hair into a sloppy pony tail, tucks her wand into her back pocket, grabs the box of tissues off her nightstand and clutches it to her chest like a teddy bear as she pulls open her bedroom door and steps out into the hall.

OK. So where to now?

Not surprisingly, Alex finds her eyes drawn to Justin's door, at the other end of the hall. He won't be up to talk to, yet—even Justin doesn't get up this ridiculously early on a Saturday—but she doesn't really feel like talking, anyway. She just doesn't want to be alone. Maybe he'll be OK with her crawling into bed with him, the way she used to when she'd have nightmares as a kid. It's been a few years, and their dynamic has changed just a bit since then...but if a broken heart isn't a good excuse for regressing, then what is?

Creeping down the hall, Alex instinctively dodges around all the creaky spots in the floor with a skill born from years of subterfuge. And though she knows it's completely innocent, that she's just going to her brother for comfort and nothing more, she still feels a subtle, illicit thrill run through her as she lays her hand on his doorknob. She hesitates a second, remembering Justin's penchant for security wards where his sister's concerned. Without even bothering to pull out her wand, she mutters "Please, not now. Just open, OK?"

And this time there isn't even a pause before the lock clicks beneath her hand. Alex sighs gratefully. Destiny might have it in for her, but at least the laws of physics and probability are sympathetic. Twisting the knob, she eases the door open with her shoulder, peers through the slowly widening crack into Justin's room, careful not to wake him...

...and then stands upright and pushes it open the rest of the way as she gawks at his empty bed, still made up and unslept in since the day before.

Fresh tears spring to Alex's eyes as she lets out a long, shuddering sigh. Well, duh, stupid. Dude just got the love of his life back after months and months apart. Of course his self-imposed bedtime was going to go right out the window. They'd probably spent the night together somewhere, secretly making love and—

Alex wrenches her eyes shut, tears spilling down her face as she presses her hand to her mouth against the sob that threatens to escape her. Turning on her heel, she scurries down the hallway as quietly as she can and bolts down the spiral staircase before she can wake up Max or their parents. She doesn't stop running until she's at the freezer door in the Sub Station. She tugs it open, darts into the lair and hauls the door shut behind her. Then she presses her back to it and collapses, sliding all the way down until she's a sobbing heap in the fetal position on the floor.

She stays like that for a long time—she completely loses track of how long—awash in grief, choking on anger and jealousy, her thoughts a jumble. She's not sure who she's crying over more, Mason or Justin, which is confusing to say the least. After awhile, she stops caring. What does it matter? She's lost them both, anyway.

Gradually, her body exhausts itself for the time being, and long shuddering sobs subside into sniffles, even if the tears don't stop coming. Hugging her knees to her chest, her forehead resting on her knees, the quiet of the lair begins to press in on her as her breathing slows.

And that's when Alex finally notices it: a faint, nose-whistling snore. Justin's snore.

Alex picks her head up off her knees with a start, her heart dropping into her stomach as she realizes she's not alone in the lair. Oh God, how stupid could she be? Of course Justin would have brought Juliet down here! How many times had she walked in on them making out in the lair? Down here, they could be as loud as they wanted, without fear of discovery, and Justin could disenchant the door so that it would simply just lead into the freezer instead of the lair... not that he'd done that, but maybe he'd just forgotten, in the heat of the moment.

Feeling nauseous, Alex hurriedly wipes off her face and stands up, grimacing at the pins-and-needles feeling in her calves, then dries her palms off on her jeans as she turns to the door. Telling herself she has to get out, get away before they wake up, she braces her hands against the door to push it open...but hesitates. Her heart thuds in her throat and her ears as she glances over her shoulder, deliberating, the need to escape warring inwardly with a sudden, overwhelming sense of morbid curiosity.

How many times has she wondered what Justin would look like, the morning after? And how many chances is she going to get to find out?

It's sick, she knows. Even worse in a way—way worse—than that night she got herself off while watching him punish himself in the basement...but now, just as then, she finds she can't help herself.

Almost before she realizes she's made her mind up, Alex tiptoes away from the door and eases her way into the lair. Hugging the wall, bracing her hands on the corner, she tells herself that she's just going to peek—one quick look to burn the image into her brain forever—then turn tail and run for the hills. Holding her breath, she peers around the corner...

...and finds Justin, alone, sprawled asleep in their dad's recliner, fully clothed and covered haphazardly with a blue blanket.

Alex blinks in surprise, and breathes a sigh of relief, wrapping her arms around herself against the sudden chill she feels from within. Despite the heaviness of her heart, she smiles a little at the peaceful look on Justin's face as he sleeps, his mouth hanging open, a thin trickle of drool leaking from the corner to pool on the cushion beneath his cheek. For the first time in weeks, he's not wearing his Monster Hunter's uniform, dressed instead in jeans and a white t-shirt, with a plaid flannel shirt over top, hiding his physique.

She glances down to his lap, where a yellow legal pad sits propped up at an awkward angle between two large, open volumes of spells. She looks around at the table and the vinyl bench across, and sees them also covered with books, some left open with their pages dog-earred, others clearly discarded in disorganized stacks. Frowning, she tilts her head to the side to read some of the titles, and finds them to be a mishmash of different subjects, with no apparent rhyme or reason to them. Shaking her head, her eyes flick back up to her brother's face.

"You finally got your girlfriend back, egghead," she murmurs quietly. "Aren't you supposed to be done with this obsessive bullshit now?"

Coming around behind him, she leans one arm on the back of the recliner above his head, then bends forward to squint at the legal pad in his lap, scanning the notes he's made in his careful, deliberate handwriting. Most of it's gibberish to her, out of context—the names of wizards, the titles of books, hastily-scrawled snippets of spells, most of them crossed-out—but a few lines here and there jump out at her, giving her some clue as to what he's after.

_"Remove desire, but leave affection intact—possible?"_

"De-lustifying versus de-loveifying—see: Pseudonomicon, vol. XI"

"Change emotion instead of expunging it—transmorphication discipline?"

"May need to resort to djinn...but how to word it w/o backfiring?"

Shaking her head at that last one—because, uh, Justin actually considering the use of a genie kind of blows her mind a little—she peers at the two spell books open to either side of the pad, skips past the introductions and any cautionary text or fine print like she always does, and reads through the spells. Turns out they're just different means towards the same end: removing the target's love for another.

And with a start, Alex realizes what Justin is trying to do, and why he's so desperate enough to consider resorting to a genie.

Fresh tears well up in her eyes as she turns her head to look at him, her lips caught somewhere between an affectionate smile and a grimace of pain. God, he can be such an absolute doll, sometimes. Overcome with emotion, her heart feeling like it might burst right through her chest, she leans forward and brushes her lips lightly against his.

Not lightly enough. Startled, Justin jerks awake mid-snore, arms and legs flailing briefly, which dumps the pad and two spell books off his lap and onto the floor. He blinks his grey eyes blearily at Alex, struggling to focus on her, then narrows them in confusion.

"Alex? What are you—? Have you been crying?"

"No," she lies, even as she reaches up to wipe the tears out of her eyes. She nods down to where the books and the pad lay at his feet. "Are those for me?"

"Are what for you?" Justin asks, pressing the heels of his hands into his own eyes and stifling a yawn. Scrubbing his hands across his face, he sleepily follows her gaze to the floor with lidded eyes...then jerks his head back up and stares at her in wide-eyed, horrified panic.

"It's not what it looks like!" he stammers, then winces and shakes his head at how terribly clich that sounds. "I mean—"

"Really?" she cuts him off wryly. "Because it looks an awful lot to me like you're looking for a way to make me fall out of love with Mason, without me realizing you did it."

Justin blinks at her, then slowly leans back in the recliner, an unfamiliar expression settling across his features. "It...does, doesn't it?" he says hesistantly.

Alex nods, then closes her eyes and lets out a sniffle as the tears start to come again. Coming around to the front of the chair, she clambers up onto the padded arm and wraps her arms around Justin's neck, pressing her forehead against his as she draws him into a hug. A few heartbeats pass before he awkwardly brings his own arms loosely around her.

"Thank you," she murmurs into his neck, "but you shouldn't be worrying about me, egghead. You just got Juliet back. You should be focusing on her."

"Yeah, well..." Justin says quietly, then trails off.

"Where is she, anyway?" Alex asks, picking her head up and glancing around the lair. "I thought you two would be joined at the hip for the next few days, doing your weird little Eskimo kiss thing everywhere I turned..."

"She _was_ here," Justin replies with a shrug. "She...left."

Alex frowns at this. "Why? Did you have a fight? About Mason?"

"No, not about Mason," Justin snorts. Then, off her confused frown, he shakes his head and waves one hand dismissively. "It wasn't a fight, exactly. And she's completely over Mason anyway. We had a long talk about it...well, about a lot of things, actually...and then she went home to see her parents before the sun came up."

"Things? What kind of things?" Alex asks.

"Y'know...things," Justin shrugs again. "Just stuff that, realistically, might stand in the way of us being together the way we want to be."

"Are you kidding me?" Alex asks, incredulous. "Justin, you just saved her from being trapped in a wall in Romania by the super-powerful mummy who'd turned her into his zombie minion! What could possibly be more insurmountable than that?"

The corner of Justin's mouth quirks up a little as he looks at her, impressed. "Insurmountable? Nice."

Alex lets out a little groan of exasperation. "Justin..."

"Lots of things, Alex," Justin sighs, pushing himself up off the recliner, tossing the blue blanket covering him aside as he begins to pace. "So many things: the difference in our ages, the fact that she's lived entire lifetimes when I've just barely started one. Then there's the whole vampire thing. I mean, if the council frowns on wizards marrying mortals, how are they gonna feel about me marrying a vampire? Plus we don't know if it's even possible for us to have kids together..."

"Woah, woah, woah...dude, aren't you getting just a little bit ahead of yourself there?" Alex asks. "I mean, marriage? Kids? You're not even done high school, yet! You're thinking too much, Justin, just like you always do. Can't you just...I dunno...enjoy each other, for awhile?"

"That's exactly what Juliet said," Justin groans, shoving his fingers back through his hair. He stops pacing and looks down at his feet. "And then she asked me what was really bothering me."

Plucking at the edge of the blanket where it lays bunched up in the recliner, Alex draws it up and wraps it like a shawl around her shoulders. "And?"

"And I told her that Mason said was kind of a wake-up call for me," Justin replies quietly, without looking up.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Alex says bitterly, sliding down the arm of the recliner into the seat, her legs tucked beneath her. "How do _you_ mean, though?"

Justin doesn't answer right away, and for a few seconds all that fills the silence between them is the sound of their breathing, and the dim hum of the furnace from the exhaust vents in the ceiling.

"Feelings you thought you were over, or that you'd buried...they never really do go away," he says finally. "Even after years and years, they're still there...eating away at you, waiting to come out and get you when you least expect it. When you truly love someone, deeply...you never do get over them, really. Not ever."

"I guess not, no." Alex draws the blanket tighter around herself and sniffles into it.

Justin glances over at the sound, then winces.

"I'm sorry, Alex. I'm an idiot," he says, quickly closing the distance between them in two strides and crouching by her side. He lays a hand on her shoulder, above the blanket. "Are you OK?"

"You said Juliet was over Mason, though," Alex says, ignoring the question. "So what are you worried about? That there's some other boy from her past out there who she's still not over? Who she'll never really give up on?"

Justin smiles at her tightly and tilts his head to the side in a slight shrug as he strokes her arm with his thumb through the blanket. "Something like that, yeah."

And the way he's looking at her, with his puppy dog eyes and sad little smile, Alex knows that she's supposed to tell him that he's crazy to worry. That Juliet loves him dearly. That they'll be together forever.

"Yeah, keep an eye out for that," she says instead, her voice breaking just a little, "because it hurts like a bitch."

"Oh, Alex...," Justin sighs. He pushes himself up off the floor and half-sits, half-leans on the arm of the recliner as he gathers her into his arms. Alex wrenches her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry in front of him, and presses her forehead against his shoulder, tilting her head into his neck. He holds her tight, strokes her back up and down through the blanket, kisses the top of her head and murmurs that everything's going to be all right.

And for just a moment, in the quiet that follows, everything is.

But then his phone rings.

His hand freezes in the middle of her back as the first few notes of his special 'Juliet' ringtone shatter the moment. (The chorus of Stevie Wonder's _'Isn't She Lovely'_, if you can believe it. Seriously. If it wasn't so heartbreaking, it'd be fucking comical.) To his credit, though, he only hesitates for a second before he resumes.

"That's her, isn't it?" Alex asks into his shoulder, her voice muffled.

"It's OK," Justin replies. "I'll call her back later."

"Don't be stupid," Alex says impatiently. "Answer it."

"I don't have to—"

"Grah!" Without taking her head off his shoulder, Alex reaches around behind him to yank his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans. Jamming her thumb down on the 'answer' button, she thrusts it up above her head to his ear.

She feels the quiet sigh he lets out more than she hears it. "Hey, Juliet."

Justin removes his hand from her back, brings it up and lays it over hers, accepting the phone from her.

"No, I've been up for awhile," he says, as she slips her hand out from under his, and lays it in her lap, clutching the edge of the blanket. "Just talking to Alex."

He pulls his other arm away from her, then, holds that hand up to cover his phone's mic. "She wants to know how you're feeling," he whispers.

Still not lifting her head from his shoulder, Alex holds both hands up to either side of her head, giving him a sardonic double thumbs-up.

"About as well as can be expected," Justin says into the phone. "What? No! Shnuggly Boo-Boo, of course she doesn't blame you!"

Alex lowers her hands again, and shakes her head against Justin's shoulder. No, she can't blame Juliet, as much as she might want to. It's not her fault The Powers That Be saw fit to turn her into Vampire Barbie. She's just playing the hand she's been dealt, same as everyone else. We all have our crosses to bear.

(OK, so maybe she grins evilly a little bit at the thought of Juliet and crosses...)

"Juliet, please don't cry...it's not your fault...no, I don't think you scratching him behind the ears was leading him on..."

Heaving a heavy sigh, Alex finally raises her head up off Justin's shoulder, to find him looking at her helplessly. He gestures at the phone with his free hand, then flails it a little.

"Justin...go," she murmurs quietly.

His eyes tighten at the corners a little, before his eyebrows raise above them in askance.

Alex nods lightly in response. "Yes, I'm sure. I'll be fine."

Justin frowns and exhales through his nose, clearly not thrilled about the idea. Still, he leans forward to kiss the top of her head one more time, then pushes up off the chair and heads for the door.

"Juliet, I'm on my way over, OK? We can talk this all out over breakfast. You want I should to pick up some jelly donuts on the way?"

She hears the click of him pressing against the push bar on the freezer door, listens to the squeak of the hinges as it swings open, then closes again with a solid _ka-chunk_. And then she's alone.

In the silence that follows, Alex glances around at the books strewn around the lair, forgotten, half of them open to spells that could pull her out of this hell she's found herself in. Just the flick of her wand, a few muttered words, and her heart would forget all about Mason. Or Justin. Or both.

And, she's not gonna lie, it's really damn tempting.

She sits there for a moment, deliberating, then reaches back and tugs her wand out of her back pocket.

_"Books know your spaces, back to your places,"_ she says quickly, before she can change her mind. The end of her wand glows yellow as all the books scattered about the room magically levitate up into the air and proceed to shelve themselves.

As the last volume settles itself in place, Alex sighs, and sets her wand down on the table next to her, then lays her head against the back of the recliner. The blanket still smells like him. She pulls it tighter around herself and presses her nose into it, inhaling deeply.

There's a line from an old movie she saw on TV once—some stupid romantic comedy that she only watched because Robert Downey Jr. was in it—which stuck with her, even though she never quite understood it:

_"To almost love a woman, and then lose her...enjoy the pain."_

Yeah. She kind of gets it, now.


	12. Chapter 12

**xii.**

"We're not normal people," he says, sounding utterly defeated. And it's quite possibly the first time in their entire lives that she's ever wholeheartedly agreed with him.

Because a normal person would not be sitting here, with her head nestled against her brother's shoulder, having just watched the so-called loves of both their short lives walk out on them, lost to them forever, and find herself overcome with the urge to climb into his lap, kiss his pain away, and do anything and everything he needed to make it all better.

(A normal person also wouldn't be sitting here in cold, clammy panties beneath her jeans, soaked through during the wicked awesome fight between her jealous werewolf boyfriend and her hot, overprotective big brother, but Alex refuses to acknowledge that fact. Because she is so not the kind of chick who gets turned on by the thought of two boys fighting over her. Besides, she was totally looking for the pendant, and not paying attention to them at all. Not even out of the corner of her eye. Nope. Not even a little bit.)

Mason's enchanted necklace still sits in her lap, its clasp snapped in two, its heart as dark and cold as her own. Her fingers toy with the shattered ends of the chain. It would be so easy to knot them together, to slip it over Justin's head before he realized what she was doing. To learn the answer to the unspoken question that's been burning within her for months, now. The only thing that keeps her from giving in to the impulse is her fear that the pendant won't glow for her. Or maybe her fear that it will. She doesn't have the faintest idea what she'd do in either case, anyway.

She hears Max shift on the parapet above, rattling the mummy's eyes in his palm like dice as he keeps watch over them, uncharacteristically silent. And if he finds anything odd about they way they're sitting, how comfortably close they are, he doesn't let on. But then, he never has. In the back of her head she hears Conscience's voice telling her that Max has never once thought of it as wrong, this complicated relationship that she and Justin have. To him, it's just one more extraordinary thing he's grown up thinking of as completely and utterly ordinary. Just like magic.

Alex snorts, wishing-not for the first time-that the world was as simple as the way Max saw it. Life would be so much easier, then.

Because, Christ, what a mess it is right now.

Somewhere in the distance, Mason howls again. Alex cringes with a pang of loss, mixed with guilt that she doesn't feel that loss nearly as keenly as she ought to. It's not that she won't miss Mason, because she will. And it's not that she doesn't love him, because she does. It's just—and she appreciates how completely and utterly fucked-up it is of her, but as hard as she tries to deny it, it's true—it's just that she loves Justin more.

And even though he looks lost in his own misery, Justin has enough presence of mind to wrap one arm around her and squeeze her shoulder reassuringly.

God, he can be such an absolute doll, sometimes.

He sighs, then-the heaviest, most world-weary sound she's ever heard him make in all their years together-and leans his head against hers.

"Come on," he says bitterly. "Let's get the hell out of here."


	13. Chapter 13

**xiii.**

Seven minutes and two tries is all it takes for Alex to turn invisible tonight. And the first try wasn't even all that bad. Justin probably wouldn't have noticed her eyebrows, anyway. It's a small victory, but given everything that's happened over the last couple days, she'll take it.

For once, she beats him to the basement. She's already settled in her rocking chair, idly laying out her soon-to-be-new art studio in her mind, when the hollow thud of his skull against that stupid pipe and his grunt of pain announce Justin's arrival.

She comes to attention as he makes his way down the stairs, rubbing his forehead and cursing under his breath. She breathes in sharply through her nose at the sight of him. It's been almost two months since the last time she spied on him like this, and though she wouldn't have believed it possible, he's even more cut now than he was then. His black cut-off tee clings to him almost like a second skin, showing off the swell of his pecs and even the slight ripple of his abs. His arms and legs look positively chiseled, every muscle thrown into relief even in the dim light of the basement. And even though he hasn't done anything yet, except drape his towel over the rail of the treadmill and start the music on his iPod, Alex can feel herself starting to get turned on.

She grimaces and shakes her head sharply, chiding herself to get her mind out of the gutter. She's not here for that, dammit. She's here because she's afraid for him—more tonight than ever before—because he's lost Juliet forever, and he blames himself, and she's all too aware of what Justin _does_ when he blames himself for something, now. And judging from the look on his face when he mounts the treadmill and sets it running—that combination of anger and self-loathing that she's come to call his 'Batman face'—she knows that she's right to worry. He fully intends to kick the ever-loving crap out himself tonight.

He attacks the treadmill at a brisk jog, his speed gradually ramping up as the minutes pass. Almost immediately her eyes are again drawn to the telltale flutter in his shorts, just a few inches below the waistband. She flushes, forces herself to look away, struggles not to picture him naked. God, how can that be comfortable, running around all floppy like that? Doesn't it, like, chafe? Isn't there some kind of dude equivalent to a sports bra he could wear? Like a cup or a jock strap, or something?

Shaking her head again, she tries to distract herself by focusing on the music she can barely make out through his earbuds, still Daft Punk's _Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger_ on an endless loop. She's familiar with it now, knows why it seemed so damned familiar but maddeningly elusive at the same time: it was all over the place three summers ago when Kanye West sampled it on _Stronger_. You couldn't get away from the damn thing.

And while she's never been a fan of the song at all—or Kanye in general, really, because what kind of douche seriously shits all over a sweetheart like Taylor Swift on national TV?—it has kind of wormed its way into the Top 25 on her own iPod over the past couple months. Because the combination of two French dudes pretending to be robots while extolling the virtues of hard work and selfless dedication, laid beneath Kanye's shameless self-aggrandizing and insistence that his attraction to somebody "can't get much wronger"...yeah, that's kind of Justin and Alex in a nutshell, right there.

Lost in thought, she's suddenly pulled back to reality when the treadmill actually whines in protest, its speed having been pushed to the upper limit. Justin grimaces, his body slick with sweat from head to toe as his legs pump furiously beneath him. Alex swallows deeply and begins to wonder if it's possible to give yourself a heart attack at 18, ignoring the damp heat that's subtly growing in her core.

Twenty-three more anxious minutes pass without incident before the timer on the treadmill beeps and Justin finally allows himself to slow down. He steps off and bends forward, bracing his hands on his knees, his chest heaving as he greedily sucks down huge lungfuls of air. He barely gives himself a moment to recover before he's face-down on the floor, grunting as he launches himself into a series of push-ups. He counts them off in a breathy voice. Alex's lips move silently as she counts along with him. And by the time he's reached two hundred, her thighs are pressed so tightly together that they actually ache. She's convinced she'll probably be even sorer than he is the next day.

Two hundred crunches follow, then two hundred leg raises, before Justin finally pushes himself up off the floor, dusts off his hands, and moves on to the weight bench. And it's here that Alex really starts to get nervous. The rocking chair creaks beneath her as she leans forward on the edge of her seat, and brings one knee up to her chest to fish her wand out its hiding place in her right boot.

She grips the handle tightly, feeling more than just a little self-conscious about what happened the last time she whipped it out like this. Shoving those thoughts aside, she watches intently as Justin stands with his hands on his hips, still breathing heavily as he eyes the barbell suspended in the rack above the bench...then turns towards the rack of weights next to it and begins selecting plates to add to it.

"Oh, Jesus fuck, Justin...are you kidding me?" Alex mutters to herself as he moves from one side of the bar to the other, and back again, loading the plates onto it. She doesn't have any clue what he's been benching lately, and math has never exactly been her strong suit, but even still...it looks like he's aiming to lift more than double of what he was when she got scared enough to put that stupid _Man of Steel_ spell on him in the first place. Which, presumably, he still doesn't know about.

So is he fucking crazy, or what? Even if the spell hasn't worn off yet, he'll be lucky if the fucking bench doesn't collapse beneath him!

Apparently, fucking crazy is exactly what he is. Because after he's loaded on the last of the ridiculous number of plates and tightened the screws holding them in place, he doesn't give a second thought to lowering himself onto the bench beneath the barbell, and reaching up to wrap his hands around the grip. Alex holds her breath as he exhales smoothly, inhales deeply through his nose, then grunts as he lifts the barbell up out of the rack and over his chest.

His arms start to tremble almost immediately, and his complexion goes from pale to grape kool-aid in a matter of seconds even as his face contorts from the strain...but amazingly, he holds it steady, without wavering. He exhales slowly through pursed lips as he gradually begins to lower it towards his chest, the metal joints of the bench groaning beneath him. He stops it within an inch or three of his chest, arms shuddering but still in control, then inhales sharply and begins to push the bar back up.

Now, here's the thing about magic, as Alex understands it: at its root, more or less what it does is tells the laws of physics and probability to look the other way for a minute. As such, there are some spells which, once successfully cast, can essentially remain in place forever. For example: once you've managed to trick the universe into believing that your parents are, rather improbably, actually guinea pigs, it doesn't take a whole lot of convincing to let them stay guinea pigs.

Some spells, though, are more like rubber bands, in that you can only stretch them so far before the universe notices, says "Hey, waaaaaaait a minute...," and snaps them back. Trying to trick it into believing that your big brother can lift increasingly improbable amounts of weight, on a regular, ongoing basis over a period of several months, would definitely fall into the second category.

Of course, the more skilled a wizard is, the longer a spell will hold. Had Professor Crumb cast the spell, Justin could probably have bench-pressed a Boeing 747 until doomsday without the universe paying much attention. Had Justin himself cast the spell, he probably could have gotten away with lifting a city bus straight through New Year's Eve before the laws of physics and probability got wise.

Alex Russo, on the other hand—while certainly possessed of certain natural gifts—is not exactly the most skilled or practiced of wizards.

So guess what starts to wear off, riiiiiiiiiiiiight about...now?

"UNGH!" Justin grunts as he gets to the top of his lift. His eyes pop wide open in terror as his arms begin to spasm uncontrollably. The barbell dips dangerously, teetering from one side to the other, as he struggles to control it with his fading strength.

"Oh, crap!" Alex gasps, jumping up out of her seat and leveling her wand at the bar. "OK, OK, I can do this! Uh, though my brother's a geek and...um...superheroes don't...exist? No, wait..."

Shit, how did this go again? It ended with Man of Steel, right? So what was it she rhymed with steel? Dammit, all she can think of are all those stupid Batman-themed ones she couldn't get right!

"AGH!" Justin cries out as the wavering barbell drops several more inches. His face is a mask of agony as he struggles to keep it up and off of himself, his breath coming in shallow, panicked gasps. "Oh, God...!"

"Ohhhhhh...fuck it!" Alex growls, flicking her wand again at the barbell. _"Weights know your spaces, back to your places!"_

The end of her wand flares yellow, and suddenly the heavy plates on either end of the barbell wrench themselves loose and levitate through the air as though they weigh nothing, bobbing one by one towards the rack to the side of the bench. Justin gasps in surprise and relief as he pushes the now-unladen bar up away from himself and tosses it to the side, where it lands on the concrete floor with a clatter. Wincing at the soreness in his tortured arms, he pushes himself up off the bench into a sitting position and watches in amazement as the plates sort themselves into the rack by size and weight.

And then, as the echo of the clattering bar dies away, and the last five-pound plate has settled, he narrows his eyes and begins peering around the basement suspiciously.

"Alex?" he calls, tugging his earbuds out of his ears and shutting off his iPod. "I know you're here. Show yourself."

Her stomach clenched into knots, Alex holds her breath again, just like the last time he suspected she was here. Maybe he'll think he did it all himself, subconsciously. Stranger things have certainly happened...

"Alex, don't make me cast 'See Invisibility' on myself, OK?" Justin says firmly. "Even if you used a spell lock, I'll still be able to counter it."

Ugh, not that she remembered to actually _use_ a spell lock. Just getting the invisibility spell down in the first place was pain in the ass enough. Goddammit, why did he have to be so good at this? Making a sound somewhere between a grunt and a sigh, Alex spins the end of her wand in a tight circle, and wills herself back into plain sight. Justin gasps as she suddenly appears before him in the rocking chair.

"There," she says petulantly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Happy?"

Justin closes his eyes, then hangs his head and sighs. "So it _was_ you, then."

"Um, duh?" Alex scoffs. "I thought we'd established that."

"I was bluffing," Justin says, without looking up. "I didn't know for sure. I was hoping that maybe I'd...I dunno, willed the weights away subconsciously, or something."

Well, crap. All she'd had to do was keep her idiot mouth shut for thirty more seconds...

"How long?" Justin asks, breaking into her thoughts.

Alex blinks, confused. "What?"

Justin raises his head finally, glaring at her angrily. "How long have you been watching me do this?"

"I dunno," Alex shrugs, looking down at the wand she holds in her lap. "A while, I guess, off and on..."

"Off and on," Justin parrots bitterly. "Right. So a couple months ago, when I thought I felt somebody cast a spell on me, was that you too?"

Alex rolls her wand back and forth between her fingertips. "Um...maybe?"

Justin snorts in disgust and shakes his head, then stands up abruptly and begins to pace like a caged animal.

"So all this, then," he says, gesturing at the weight bench and the treadmill with both hands, "everything I've accomplished over the past—what, five months? Six? All that's been because of magic. And you."

"What? No!" Alex protests. Then, off his look of skepticism: "OK, so maybe I helped a little, but that's only because you were going at it so crazy hard! I was afraid you were gonna hurt yourself!"

"Then you should have let me hurt myself!" Justin snaps. "How else am I going to figure out what my limits are? How else am I supposed to push myself past them? Dammit, Alex, I told you these spells are only as good as I am! Do you have any idea how far you've set me back?"

"Set you back? Justin, you were trying to lift, like, three times your own weight! You've been taking whatever the spell lets you do and adding onto it, more and more, every single day! I've seen you! Even _with_ it, I thought you were gonna pop something!"

"That's not the same thing," Justin growls.

"Really? Then where do you think all those muscles came from, Popeye?" Alex snarks. "I haven't been force-feeding you spinach in your sleep, or whatever."

Justin glances down, at his arms and his chest, and belatedly Alex realizes just how proud her formerly-scrawny nerdling of a big brother must be of his progress these long few months.

"The spell could have done that," he says skeptically.

"It didn't," she says. "Like you said, it's only been as good as you are. And OK, so maybe you saw a huge jump in how much you could lift that night I cast the spell...but tell me you haven't been ratcheting that up little by little in the weeks since. Tell me you haven't been pushing that envelope as far as you can possibly push it."

Justin rolls his eyes. "Well...sure, maybe, but—"

"I know you have," Alex cuts him off, standing up off the rocking chair and walking towards him. "Because that's who you are, and that's what you do."

Holding his gaze, having closed the distance between them, Alex reaches out to press the palm of her free hand against his chest. He lets out a small gasp as she digs the tips of her fingers a little into his firm pectoral muscle, then runs her hand up to his shoulder, and slides it down along the curve of his bicep.

"This is all you," she says, her voice coming out a lot huskier than she'd intended. "Magic didn't have anything to do with it, and neither did I."

Justin looks down at her hand as it finishes tracing the contour of his arm, and comes to rest at his wrist, just above his right hand. The corner of his mouth quirks up into a little half-smile before he glances bashfully back up at her.

"Yeah, you did," he sighs.

"No," Alex says, with a shake of her head. "I mean it, Justin. All your hard work—"

"You were the reason I started all this in the first place, Alex," he interjects quietly.

Alex gives a start at this, visibly taken aback. "Wait, what? I thought this all started because you wanted to be a better Monster Hunter!"

"Well, yeah," Justin admits with a shrug. "But only so you'd stop having to come to my rescue all the damn time. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was for me? I'm supposed to be the one who takes care of you. Who fixes the things that you screw up. To have _you_. suddenly doing it for _me_ made me feel..."

"Like I was calling your masculinity into question?" Alex asks, quoting Conscience verbatim.

Justin blinks at this, then cocks an eyebrow at her. "I was gonna say 'weak', but thanks..."

"Why? Just because I'm a girl, and you're the man?" Alex asks, with a roll of her eyes. "Or because I'm your baby sister?"

"Uh..." Justin looks away across the room, awkwardly reaches up and begins rubbing the back of his neck with his left hand. "Would you believe neither, actually?"

Now it's Alex's turn to raise an eyebrow, as she crosses her arms beneath her breasts. "Oh, this should be good. Explain."

"OK, at first I thought maybe that might be it," Justin admits. "The whole _'rawr, I'm a man'_ thing, I mean. But the more I thought about it... I really don't think I'm wired to be that big a male chauvinist, y'know? And it's not like I had any problem letting Juliet take on Mason for me..."

"Don't sell yourself short, egghead. You got a few good licks in," Alex says, surpressing a shiver at the memory. "That whole flying kick thing you did was actually pretty badass."

_"I know, right?"_ Justin grins, flushing with pride, then blinks and awkwardly clears his throat as he remembers they're talking about him attacking her very-recently-ex-boyfriend. "Uh, anyway, so...no, it wasn't the whole stupid macho thing..."

"Conscience seemed to think otherwise," Alex says.

"Uh, Conscience was a part of Max," Justin points out. "OK, so he was arguably the best part of Max, but still...are you seriously going to put even a lick of faith into the reasoning of _any_ part of him?"

Alex scrunches up her nose, but says nothing in response. He does have a point. In fact, she vaguely recalls making the exact same argument herself a few months back...

"And I genuinely don't think it was the 'baby sister' thing, either," Justin continues after she doesn't say anything, "because I clearly didn't have any trouble letting Max talk me into dragging him along on one half-baked, harebrained scheme after another to track the mummy down..."

"Yeah, still haven't forgiven you for that, by the way," Alex says. "I mean, seriously...picking Max over me? Ouch, dude."

"I know, I know," Justin nods ruefully. "It, uh, seemed like a good idea at the time?"

"So what was it, then?" Alex demands. "What is it about me that put this wild hair up your ass and made you think you had to turn yourself into Batman, or whatever?"

Justin doesn't answer right away, just looks at her hand where it still rests on his wrist, as close as she'll allow herself to come to taking his own hand in hers. She begins to feel self-conscious in the silence that follows, and is about to prompt him again when he suddenly heaves a heavy sigh that seems to come from the soles of his feet, then sits down heavily on the padded bench, his face in his hands.

"Let's just say," he says, his voice muffled, "that I think it's probably a good thing that I'm going to be going away to college in a few months. For both of us."

"Why?" Alex frowns, trying not to show how badly this stings, and failing miserably. "Are you that eager to get the hell away from me?"

"No," Justin replies, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. "Quite the opposite, actually. In fact, I kind of can't stand the idea of being away from you."

She also fails miserably at hiding the sappy grin that blossoms on her face when she hears this. Dammit, she used to be much better at this. Shaking her head in confusion, she sits down on the bench next to him, peering at him intently.

"Justin, you're talking in non-sequitors again. What does you going away to college have to do with this whole 'death by exercise' deal you've got going on, here? And what do either have to do with me?"

"Oh, only everything," he groans—in frustration or annoyance, she's not sure which—and she feels a sharp pang of guilt over the way she tingles at the sound of it.

"Look, I really wasn't prepared to talk about this tonight, Alex," Justin says, still not looking at her. "Or, y'know, ever. I don't know if I can even actually manage to say the words out loud without spontaneously combusting, or something."

Alex smiles lightly and holds up her wand. "I happen to know a really good a really good flame retardant spell."

Justin snorts at this. "You would, wouldn't you?"

"I'll have you put out before you even realize you're on fire," Alex says confidently. "So stop stalling and spit it out, already."

She hears Justin's breath catch in his throat, then shudder as it lets it out slowly. He's so obviously, painfully nervous that it's actually making _her_ nervous just to sit here next to him.

"I didn't like looking weak to you because of how I feel about you, Alex," he says quietly, his voice quivering just a little. "See, the thing is...

He trails off into silence, and Alex has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from rolling her eyes or groaning impatiently. "The thing is...?"

"The thing is," he repeats, his voice barely louder than a whisper, "that I think I might...maybe...love you, a little bit."

Alex's blood turns to ice water in her veins, even as her cheeks begin to burn furiously. Her heart leaps up into her throat at the same time that the bottom drops right out of her stomach.

"Well, duh, egghead," she chuckles, nudging him lightly in the ribs with her elbow, with a nonchalance she definitely doesn't feel. Because there's no way he means it the way she wants him to, not even a little bit. "I'm your sister. Even if I wasn't eminently loveable, I think you'd have to, anyway. It's, like, the law or something."

She waits for him to take the bait, and gape at her in amazement at her correct use of the word 'eminently', because her using big words always impresses him enough that he forgets what they're fighting about, if only for a second. But for once, he doesn't even notice, and just shakes his head furiously.

"No, Alex!" he groans, sounding absolutely miserable. "You don't understand! I don't just _love_ you. I'm actually..."

He trails off again, closes his eyes and just breathes for a moment, the same way he always does right before he lifts the barbell off the rack to begin a set of lifts: steeling himself, gathering the strength and determination necessary to forge ahead.

"I'm _in love_ with you, Alex," he says finally. Then, with a snort, he adds: "In a pretty definitively against-the-law kind of way."

Alex stares at him dumbly, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open, as a whole world of possibilities she never dared consider begins to unfurl itself before her in her mind's eye. Justin's eyes tighten at the corners as he studies her reaction, and she realizes she'd better say something quick before he throws up, or something.

"But you were in love with Juliet, and had absolutely no problem looking like a complete pussy in front of her!" she blurts out.

Justin blinks in surprise, then looks at her flatly. Whoops. Yeah, probably shouldn't have gone with the first thing that popped into her head.

"Um, your words, not mine," she adds quickly. "OK, so maybe I'm actually paraphrasing a little, but—"

He continues to look at her flatly, then raises his eyebrows for emphasis. And then she gets what he's trying to tell her.

"Oh," she says quietly.

"Yeah," he sighs, running his fingers back through his hair. "Oh."

"But you were completely _retarded_ for Juliet!' Alex exclaims. "With all the goofy nose kisses, and the sobbing after the mummy took her, and your stupid, cutesy...Snuggly...Boo-Boo...Kitty Fuck..."

"McCutiekins," Justin corrects her automatically.

"Whatever!" she snaps, waving one hand dismissively. "Justin, you were willing to overlook the fact that _her parents liked to eat people!_ If you'd been any sweeter on that girl, she would have given you diabetes! Are you honestly trying to tell me that none of that was real?"

"No, it was," Justin says firmly. "It _is_. But the thing is, Alex, when it comes right down to it...whenever I've had the choice between putting her in harm's way, or you, I've always chosen _her_, haven't I? And she's been the one to pay the price for it."

"Justin, it's not like that," Alex protests. "You didn't even know the mummy was going to be at the museum that night. You gave her up to him to save her life. And you didn't ask her to take Mason on the way she did..."

"But I didn't stop her, either, did I?" Justin says. "I was too busy protecting you. And now she's gone, and old, and alone. But as horribly guilty as I feel about it, as awful a person as I know it makes me...both times, I can't help but be grateful that it was her I lost, and not you."

He looks up at her then, his eyes glittering with barely-contained tears.

"Don't you get it, Alex?" he asks, his voice raw, his face ashen. "It's not that I don't love Juliet, because I do. It's just that I love you more."

Alex breaths in sharply, feeling as though he's just sucker-punched her in the stomach. She blinks as her own eyes begin to sting with tears.

They stare at each other silently for a long moment before Justin wrenches his eyes shut and sits forward with his elbows on his knees. He drops his head forward and laces his fingers tightly behind his neck.

"I'm sorry to lay all this on you," he says, as several teardrops spatter against the concrete floor below his face. "I never meant to. I told myself I never would. But you asked, and I've never been able to say no to you, and...God, how fucked up am I?"

"Justin..." she begins, then trails off, for once in her life at a complete and utter loss for words. Because they just don't make words for what she's feeling, what she wants to say.

So instead, before she even realizes what she's doing, Alex throws her arms around her brother, clambers into his lap, and proceeds to kiss his pain away, determined to do anything and everything he needs to make it all better.

He looks up in shock as he feels her lips press against his damp cheek, then jerks backwards in surprise and confusion as she swings one leg over both of his, straddling him. "Alex? What are you—?"

"Shhhh!" she hushes him, placing one hand on the back of his neck and drawing his face towards hers. He gasps as she smashes her lips against his, wraps her arms around him and presses her body as tightly against his as she can physically manage. She can feel him give into it for a split-second, his lips softening below her assault, his body sagging against hers almost with relief. But then everything in him goes rigid, and he braces his hands against her shoulders and pushes her away.

"Alex, stop!" he snarls as he holds her at arms' length, his expression wavering from confusion, to hurt, to anger, and back again. "Don't toy with me! I know you're heartbroken over Mason, but we both know you don't really want this!"

"But I do want this, Justin," Alex says, breathlessly. "Oh God, I _so_ do. I wanted it even before Mason, and I mean _way_ before. Hell, the only reason Mason even happened is _because_ I wanted this so much!"

Justin blinks at this, then breaks into a wide grin. Then he blinks again and frowns in confusion as his brain catches up to him. "Wait, how's that again?"

"Justin...just shut up," she growls in exasperation before she attacks him again. And this time, thankfully, he totally just goes with it. His lips part slightly beneath hers, the tip of his tongue fluttering lightly between them against her teeth, and then he groans into her mouth as she accepts his invitation and thrusts her own tongue against his.

Alex's heart swells as they kiss, threatening to burst, overflowing with more joy and gratitude than she ever thought possible. Tears spill down her cheeks from the corners of her eyes, seeping between their lips and tasting salty on her tongue as it wrestles with his. And she's so happy that she forgets to be mortified by the sheer, Harper-ish girliness of it all. Seconds grow into minutes, then into God only knows how long, without either of them once coming up for air. And even though she's starting to feel dizzy and out of breath, Alex refuses to stop. Because this, right here, is everything she's ever wanted, for as long as she can remember. For the first time in her life, she feels at peace. Whole. Sated.

At least right up until the moment when, y'know, she doesn't anymore. And she realizes that she wants—needs—more. 


	14. Chapter 14

**xiv.**

Suddenly, her hands are everywhere at once, roaming over his body and tracing every well-defined contour—his back, his neck, his arms, his chest—while his stay firmly rooted to her waist in a gentlemanly display of polite restraint. Feeling neglected, Alex finally rolls her eyes in frustration, grabs his hand in her own and, without breaking the kiss, slides it up her midriff under her T-shirt until his palm is covering her breast. His entire body goes rigid again, and for a second she feels a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, fearing that she's pushed him too far, too fast. But then he squeezes her, grinds the heel of his palm against her swollen nipple, and begins to roll it gently between the knuckles of his thumb and forefinger. She sighs with relief, grinning against his lips, as Justin turns his brain off with an almost audible click, and finally lets his hormones take over.

And, boy howdy, do they.

Justin releases her lips with a moist smack, nuzzles against her cheek, then attaches his lips to the pulse point just below her jaw and begins to suckle on it for all he's worth. Alex groans at the sensation and involuntarily bucks her hips, receiving an answering groan from Justin in response as she inadvertently grinds herself against him. She becomes aware of the growing stiffness she can feel pressed against her core, through his thin exercise shorts and her flannel pajama bottoms. Wrapping her arms back around his neck, she bucks against him again, on purpose this time, enjoying the illicit thrill and rush of power that shoots through her as she feels him twitch against her. Suddenly she's grateful that he doesn't wear a cup, after all.

Both his hands are beneath her shirt now, kneading her breasts, and his mouth is gradually moving south from her jaw to her collarbone. A little too gradually for her taste, actually. Grunting with impatience, Alex pushes back from him, crosses her arms in front of her to grab the hem of her shirt in both fists, yanks it up and off of her, and tosses it carelessly over her shoulder with a flourish. And the gasp this tears out of Justin as he gets his first really good look at her, naked from the waist up, is easily the most gratifying thing she's heard in her young life, so far.

"Wow," he says, with a quiet awe that makes her entire body flush with pride. He reaches up with to stroke the soft swell of her right breast with the back of his left hand, gently and deliberately, making her shudder. His eyes drink in every inch of her, hungrily, before coming to rest on her own. "My God, Alex...you're perfect."

She beams at this for a second, unreservedly, then drops her gaze to his chest and cocks an eyebrow.

"Well, you're certainly not," she pouts. "For one thing, you're wearing entirely too much."

"Oh, right...sorry," Justin mutters bashfully. He reaches back to grab his own shirt, bunching it up just below the collar, hesitates a moment, then clears his throat uncomfortably as he draws it forward over his head.

"Well, helloooooooooo nurse!" Alex grins, as she finally gets an eyeful of Justin's new physique. She leans back in his lap, bracing her hands against his knees behind her, and whistles appreciatively as she runs her eyes up and down his finely-toned chest and stomach. "Wow yourself, there, sailor!"

Justin goes deep crimson as he carefully drapes his shirt over the bench next to him. "Really?"

"Ohhhh, yes," Alex sighs contentedly, leaning forward again to run her hands over his firm pecs, then trace her fingertips over the ripple of his abs. "I can _definitely_ work with this."

Justin laughs nervously, then gasps as Alex takes the waistband of his shorts between the thumb and forefinger of each hand and daintily pulls it away from his body, pinkies raised, and cocks her head forward to peer down the front of them.

"Alex!" he says, in that breathy, scandalized voice that's always given her chills. He grabs her hands in his own and snatches them away from his waistband. "Just what do you think you're doing?"

"What, I'm not allowed a preview of coming attractions?" Alex pouts.

Justin's expression is priceless, as about two dozen emotions play out over his face in the space of the next few seconds, fighting for dominance. Shock seems to have the upper hand through most of it, but utter disbelief and excited anticipation rally to give it a run for its money. There may even be a hint of sheer terror in there, too. Eventually, though, it's a serious look of sober concern and sincere affection that finally wins out, as he looks deeply into her eyes. Because he's Justin, after all.

"But I thought we'd just...I didn't think you would...are you trying to tell me that you want to—?" He glances away for a second, and the entire battle plays itself out again before his gaze returns. "I mean, that you want us to—?"

Her heart pounding painfully in her throat, Alex brings one hand up to cup his cheek, then leans forward to kiss him softly.

"Yeah, I do," she whispers then, pressing her forehead to his, her chocolate brown eyes coyly meeting his through her lashes. "I mean, if that's OK?"

Justin snorts . "I think we left 'OK' back in the dust somewhere, about twenty minutes ago..."

"Justin, we're not normal people, remember?" Alex sighs, trailing her fingers up and down his bare chest. "And y'know what? I think I'm perfectly fine with that."

He doesn't say anything, but he shakes his head slightly, hesitantly, as though he wants to believe her but he just can't bring himself to.

"It's true, Justin," she says, kissing him again. "Honest." Another soft kiss. "I've always known that I wanted it to be you."

She feels more than sees the impact this has on him, the sudden hitch in his breathing, the quickening of his heartbeat beneath the pads of her fingers, the way he swallows hard to keep from crying. And as he takes her hand in his and brings it up to his lips, kissing the back of it gently, she grins and feels a sudden surge of erotic warmth shoot through her core, because she knows she has him now.

"Not here, though," Justin says tenderly. "Not like this. You want it to be special, don't you? Romantic?"

"Oh Jesus Christ, Justin! You can be such a girl sometimes!" Alex growls in annoyance. She pulls back, places her hands on his shoulders, and looks at him levelly. "Look, trust me: this exactly how and where I want it. Want _you_."

Justin blinks at this, then glances at the cluttered, musty basement around them and frowns, clearly unimpressed with the ambiance of their surroundings. "What, seriously?"

"Oh God, yes!" Alex says, a little breathlessly. She feels her cheeks begin to burn, unable to believe what she's about to admit to him. "If you knew how many times I've pictured it in the past few months as I spied on you...me lying back, right here...you hovering over me..."

"Really," Justin says, nonplussed. One side of his mouth turns up in a cocky smile as he wraps one arm around her waist, brings the other hand up to rest between his shoulder blades, and pivots his hips to twist them both to the side as he slowly lowers her down onto the bench. "You mean like this?"

"Mmm-hmm," she nods as she lays back, grinning in anticipation. The sensation of the cool vinyl beneath her flushed and naked back is simply delicious, making her shiver. She untangles her legs from his, and places her feet flat on the floor to either side of the bench. The way this forces her knees to spread for him, and the way his eyes are drawn immediately to her groin feels thrillingly, blatantly naughty, even though she's still wearing her pajama bottoms.

Justin leans forward, kisses her first on the lips, then on the hollow spot at the base of her throat just above her collar bone, and finally each of her tight and swollen nipples in turn. Then, as if he were reading her mind, he hooks two fingers of each hand into the waistband of her pants and panties beneath. He tilts his face back up to hers, his eyebrows raised in askance. Alex giggles nervously in response, then nods lightly and arches her back towards the ceiling, supporting herself on her shoulders and elbows, lifting her bum clear off the bench. And then she gasps as he smoothly eases her bottoms down to her knees, and the cool, moist air of the basement raises gooseflesh all the way up her legs to her equally damp pussy.

Justin actually pauses in the midst of tugging off her pants and cocks an eyebrow at his first glimpse of her below the waist. He stares for a moment, then glances up at her face in amusement. "A lightning bolt, Alex? Really?"

Alex blinks at him, then looks down at herself and blushes furiously. Oh right, she forgot about that.

"Um, waxing's a real bitch," she explains lamely. "And there's no way in _hell_ I'm using a razor down there, so I, uh...made up a spell." She shrugs. "Sometimes I get a little, um, creative with it."

"No kidding," he says, grinning down at the sculpted little patch of dark pubic hair on her abdomen. "It's cute."

"Shut up," she groans, lifting her legs straight up in the air, as much to block his view of it as to make it easier for him to pull her pants the rest of the way off. "I didn't think anyone else was actually gonna see it..."

"No really, I mean it. It's adorable," Justin chuckles, pulling off her right boot, then her left, and dropping them to the floor next to the bench. "Personal grooming as literary criticism? I like it. And God knows I appreciate a clever pun as much as the next guy."

"Literary—?" Alex frowns in confusion as he slips her bottoms up and off her, then lays a kiss upon her ankle as he folds them carefully in his lap and sets them on the floor. Because, really, is this what they're doing? Bantering as he peels her clothes off? OK, yeah, so the whole witty back and forth repartee thing is kind of what they do—well, not so much lately, and God, how she's missed it—but, hello, _now?_ Is this seriously, like, some kind of weird foreplay for them?

(Is that why it's turning her on so much? Is that why it kind of always has?)

"OK, I'll bite," Alex sighs in mock-resignation, electing to just go with it. "What's the clever pun?"

Justin cocks an eyebrow at her again, one hand supporting her ankles as he slides the other all the way down her outstretched legs. He rakes his fingernails gently along the back of her thighs, making her quiver, until he's cupping the gentle curve of her ass in his palm, and squeezing it gently.

"I'm sorry, is 'Hairy Potter' not what you were going for?" he asks.

"Uggggh," Alex groans shakily, covering her face with both hands and shaking her head as he begins to kiss his way down her calf, his lips following the trail left by his fingers. "OK, that's it. You're officially not allowed to talk, anymore. I called it."

"Oh, c'mon," he says between kisses. His fingers have begun tracing little circles on her ass cheek, growing wider and wider with every circuit, skirting the outer edge of her cootch, and it's driving her wild. "I thought it was funny."

"Only you would, egghead," she replies, although it comes out more like a desperate croak as she squirms against the twin sensations of his lips and his fingers growing inexorably closer to her sodden core from opposite ends. She can feel liquid heat seeping out of her, and she wonders if he notices.

"Hey, it was either that or a Flash reference," he mumbles against the back of her thigh, nipping it gently between his teeth. "Ooo, or maybe Captain Marvel..."

"You are seriously killing the mood with all this geek shit, dorkus, I mean it," Alex pants, her legs shaking with barely contained anticipation. "I swear to Christ, if the words 'Jim Bob Sherwood' actually come out of your mouth at any point, I'm leav—"

She breaks off with a cry as his middle finger finally slips into her—not far, but just enough—as his lips brush lightly against her vulva, causing her entire body to spasm clear off the bench, as little bursts of color explode behind her eyelids.

"Shazam!" she hears him say proudly through the haze.

Releasing his hold on her ankles, he allows her to drop her legs down onto his shoulders, opening herself to him. He accepts the invitation eagerly, parting her folds with the fingers of one hand while teasing her threshold with the other, even as his lips, teeth and tongue begin a deliberate, determined exploration of her clitoris. Her body floods with molten desire under his onslaught, and the slippery wet sound his tongue makes as he laps up every last drop is the most exquisitely erotic thing she's ever heard.

Moaning, Alex brings her hands down to tangle her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer. Her back arches and her hips begin to gyrate of their own accord, trying to urge him to probe deeper. But as lavishly attentive as he is, his fingers draw back slightly each time, never straying far beyond the surface, making her ache and burn with need.

"Justin, please!" she groans in desperation. "I want you!"

Justin stops suckling her clit long enough to raise his head and gaze at her intensely. His face is slick with her, and sweet holy fuck, he looks so good down there that just the sight of him is nearly enough to drive her screaming over the edge right then and there.

"Are you sure?" he asks soberly, his fingers still expertly teasing her entrance, just below his chin. "Because just this is fine, really..."

"Like hell it is!" she growls, leaning forward to grab him under his arms. He actually squawks in surprise as she hauls him up and over her, then squawks again even louder as she grabs the sides of his shorts in either hand and yanks them down with all her might. His erection stands at attention at a near right-angle from his body, bobbing comically up and down with the suddenness of its release. They both stare at it for a silent moment as though hypnotized.

And then a wicked grin breaks across Alex's features, and she reaches out to wrap her small hand around it. She squeezes it gently, enjoying its warmth and firmness against her palm, and the soft, urgent grunt that escapes Justin's lips in response. Stroking him gently, she marvels at how smooth his skin feels, here, despite how tightly—almost painfully—it looks to be stretched over the throbbing length of his shaft. A tiny, pearly white bead of pre-cum begins to ooze its way out of the tip, and Alex smears it with her thumb, rubbing it over the head, feeling her clit twitch mightily as he groans again, louder. Then, leaning back against the bench, she hooks her calves around the backs of Justin's knees, curls her fingers tightly around his girth, and begins to tug him forward, angling him down towards her.

His eyes go wide as he realizes what she's doing. "Alex, wait..."

"No," she says, in a tone that leaves no room for debate. "I need you. Now."

He shakes his head frantically and tries to pull away. "But Alex, we don't have a—"

_"My lover wants to practice safe sex,"_ she says impatiently, holding him tightly and twirling his head in the air with a flourish of her wrist. _"Wrap his member in ribbed latex."_

And then Justin's jaw drops open as the tip of his penis flares with a bright red light, and a condom suddenly materializes around it out of thin air, beneath her fingers. He stares at it open-mouthed for a moment, completely flabbergasted, then raises his eyes to Alex's in stunned disbelief.

"Did you seriously just use my wang as a—?"

She cuts him off by crushing her lips into his and thrusting her tongue deep into his mouth, because his breathy, scandalized voice is more than she can honestly take right now. Hooking her left elbow around the back of his neck, she drags him down onto her, angling the tip of his cock against her entrance with her other hand. He inhales sharply and breaks the kiss, drawing his head back slightly and gazing deep into her eyes. "Alex...?"

She nods frantically, wishing he'd just do it already, before she loses her goddamned nerve. "Just go slow, OK?"

Justin smiles at her reassuringly, then leans forward and covers her mouth with his, kissing her slowly, almost lazily, in counterpoint to the near-panicked urgency she feels in her loins, with the burning tip of him pressed bluntly right up against her. Alex squints her eyes closed, her entire body tensed like a spring wound too tightly, anticipating the moment of truth and dreading it at the same time.

And then she squeals in surprise as Justin captures her bottom lip between her teeth and bites down. Not hard, not enough to really do more than sting, but it takes her head right out of the game for a second. And just as she's about to pull away from him in annoyance and ask him what his damage is, he flexes his hips and slips himself forward into her. Alex whimpers into his mouth as he parts her like the Red Sea, her muscles clamping tightly around him as though they have a mind all their own. Justin moans, releases her lip from his teeth, and drops his head down so that ends of his hair tickle against her taut nipples.

"Oh my God," he says breathlessly. "Alex, you're so tight..."

"Don't stop," she gulps, sliding her hands down his back and cupping his ass in her palms. "Keep going."

He does, pushing in slowly, deeply. And yeah, it hurts a bit—OK, yowch, maybe more than just a bit—but not nearly as much as she was afraid it would. Certainly nothing she can't handle. In fact, it kind of feels amazing at the same time—not just in spite of the pain, strangely, but _because_ of it, in a way. And looking up into his face, at the way it's contorted with restraint as he fills and stretches all her secret places in ways her wand never has, never could, she feels a surge of joy and gratitude that it's _him_ she's experiencing this with. Especially when, just today, the whole idea of it seemed impossible.

Justin gives one last, gentle thrust, easing himself in to the hilt at long last, and together they moan as his testicles brush against the sensitive skin of her perineum. He finally raises his head and smiles at her, his eyes dancing. Alex smiles back, her eyes filling with tears, then surprises them both by choking back a sob.

"Hey," Justin says, his voice filled with concern as she strokes her dark hair away from her forehead. "Alex? Honey, what's wrong?"

Alex grins at this through her tears—he's never called her that before, and she knows it's petty, but she never heard him call Juliet that, either—then sobs again and shakes her head, lifting it to press her forehead against his chest, overwhelmed with emotion, and feeling vaguely confused and embarrassed by it.

"Nothing, I'm fine," she says honestly, her voice muffled. "I'm just...being all girly, that's all. Sorry."

He lets out a small, sharp breath, part laughter, part relief, then kisses the top of her head. "Don't be. You're allowed."

"Gee thanks, egghead," she chuckles, sniffling as she nuzzles his chest. She lowers her head back down onto the bench and smiles lovingly up at him. "So glad you approve."

"Do you want to keep going?" he asks softly.

Alex grins wickedly in return as she blinks away tears. "Try and stop me."

Justin gasps as she clenches herself around him, gripping him tightly, then starts rocking her hips back and forth, grinding slowly beneath him, against him, around him. Looking down at her, his grey eyes filled first with surprise, then gratitude, he lowers his face to hers and softly brushes his lips against hers, then trails kisses along her jawbone to the pulse point just below her earlobe, nipping it gently. Alex sighs, closes her eyes and lolls her head to the side, her entire body shivering as his mouth works its magic on her throat, even he gradually begins to ease himself in and out of her.

She winces a little at the sensation, pain/pleasure, pleasure/pain, groaning every time he almost slips out of her, leaving her empty, then again whenever he's fully seated inside her, filling her almost to bursting. She can feel his breath quickening, hot against the side of her face, and she begins to rock her hips just a little bit faster, silently urging him on, letting him know that it's OK for him to pick up the pace. He follows her cue, the way he always has, and throws caution out the window, thrusting into her with confidence. And, ohmigod, as much as it hurts, it's heaven.

Suddenly Alex feels his weight shift, lift up off of her, and she opens her eyes to see him gripping the struts of the barbell rack to either side of her, bracing himself against them for leverage. He begins to piston in and out of her with wild abandon, and it makes her so wet that her pussy audibly squishes around him. In response, Alex brings her feet up onto the bench behind him, lifting her knees, then cries out and arches her back as...

"OHJESUSFUCKINGCHRIST!"

Wow. She didn't think it was possible for him to get any deeper than he was, but holy shit, was she wrong.

Justin's body is coated in a thin sheen of perspiration, the muscles in his arms and chest bulging and rippling with every plunge of his cock. The air is thick with the scent of him. It's every fantasy she ever had while watching him work out come to life. But it's the expression on his face as he fucks her urgently that gets her the most: not his 'Batman face', as she would have expected, but an unfamiliar look of complete and unadulterated bliss. Like she's the best thing that's ever happened to him. And it's the hottest fucking thing she's ever seen.

And though everything she's ever read or heard or seen about losing your virginity—from Judy Bloom to Dr. Drew to _Savage Love_, right on down—has prepared her not to expect much from her first time, apparently none of those assholes ever had their cherries popped by Justin Sisterfucking Russo. Because she can feel an orgasm coming on with a vengeance, as she bucks uncontrollably beaneath him. He is _so_ going to make her come.

And then, just as she feels the swelling tide within her nearing its peak, and it seems like she might teeter on the edge of it forever, perpetually just one more thrust of his burning cock away from paradise, his hips give a jerk and he twitches wildly deep within her. He cries out her name as he explodes, burrowed as deeply and tightly inside her as he can manage, in that breathy, scandalized voice she loves so goddamned much. And that's all it takes to send her plummeting over the brink after him, legs clamped tightly around his waist as she grinds herself against him, riding out her orgasm, fingernails raking his back and shoulders as her whole body tries to turn itself inside out around him.

The next several moments are filled with wordless panting and breathless groans as shuddering aftershocks claim them both, Alex's pulse beating wildly in her throat and chest and clit. Justin lowers his forehead and presses it against hers as he struggles to catch his breath, eyes closed. Grinning, Alex reaches up to frame his face in her hands, and tilts her chin up towards him to brush her lips against his.

"So," she breathes, "_that_ happened."

He opens his eyelids, slowly, his grey eyes dancing happily as they search hers. "Are you all right?"

"What, are you kidding me?" Alex scoffs, sliding her hands up to run her fingers through his hair. "Every muscle below my lightning bolt is throbbing, right now. I'm sore in places I didn't know I had. I'm going to be walking funny for _days_... so, yeah, never better."

Justin grins at this. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Alex snorts and cocks a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Uh, no offense, dude, because I appreciate you're trying to play the sensitive male card, here, but I very seriously doubt that you do. This is really kind of a girls' only thing."

"Well, yeah, but..." Justin shrugs, turning his head slightly to kiss the inside of her left wrist. "You've just described the way I always feel after a really good, hard workout, is all."

"Well then, congratulations, egghead," Alex sighs. "You've just been hired as my full-time personal trainer."

He lets out a short, sharp laugh at this, and she revels in the sound of it. It's been so long since she's heard him so happy, and it thrills her to know that she's the cause of it.

"I think I like the sound of that," he chuckles. "Although, then again, given how you tend to take to training like a fish to battery acid...I think I might be in for some serious trouble."

She shrugs, not bothering to deny it. "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred."

He blinks in surprise, then laughs again, delighted. "Wow, nice pull. Who's spoiling the mood with geeky references now, though, hmm?"

"Yeah, great," she says, rolling her eyes. "Who knew extreme dorkiness was a sexually transmitted disease?"

Justin shakes his head ruefully as he kisses her again, still chuckling. And, huh, it looks like this weird bantering thing of theirs is going to pass for afterglow pillow talk, too. It's more than a little strange, but also comforting in a way...like it's nice to know that, even in the face of something as irrevocably life-altering as this, their dynamic really isn't going to have to change all that much.

Justin begins to soften inside her, and without breaking the kiss, he reaches down to hold the base of the condom as he slips himself out of her. Alex inhales sharply, and holds her breath to keep from hissing through her teeth as he withdraws, because even this little bit of movement leaves her burning. And as much as she genuinely can't wait to make love with him again, she really hopes he's OK with going just the one round for tonight. Because she seriously wasn't kidding about the whole 'walking funny for days' thing.

"I still can't believe you used my dick as a wand," he says, marveling at the condom as he ties a knot in it and drops it next to where their clothing lies scattered. "That was really something."

"Yeah, sorry about that," she says as she stretches lazily. "I totally lost track of mine in all the...y'know...and I just worked with what I had on hand."

"Ha-ha."

Alex frowns as she picks her head up off the bench and begins scanning the floor around it. "You don't see it, do you? Dad'll flip tomorrow if he finds out I've lost another one."

"Don't worry, we'll find it," he says, tugging on her arm and pulling her into his lap. "Let's just be for tonight, OK? Tomorrow can take care of itself."

Alex raises her eyebrows in surprise at this very un-Justin-esque sentiment, then nods as she wraps her arms around him.

"OK," she sighs contentedly, as she tucks her head under his chin.


	15. Chapter 15

**xv.**

Alex gets off easy, all things considered, with only a scraped elbow and a small goose egg on the back of her head where it bounces off the side of the dumpster as she slams into it, hard. She coughs twice, choking on the stench of ozone. Smoke rises from the scorch mark in the middle of the black magic-proof vest she wears, where it's absorbed the brunt of the blast. And suddenly, she's not quite so annoyed that Justin makes her put the damn thing on every night they go out like this. Capitol fashion crime though the official Monster Hunter's uniform might be, she can't deny the utility of it. Justin's going to be insufferably smug about it for weeks when he finds out, though. Ugh.

Fuck her life. Why didn't she just choose Magical Basket Weaving for her independent study when she had the chance?

Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs, she looks up suddenly as the will-o'-wisp swoops down towards her from the mouth of the alley. It buzzes like a horde of angry wasps as it pulses blue-white, charging itself for another blast. Gripping her wand tightly, she scrambles to get her feet under her then tucks herself into a clumsy shoulder-roll, ducking just beneath the jagged bolt of energy that the wisp hurls her way. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up as it just misses her, and splashes against the side of the dumpster with a shower of sparks.

Grimacing, Alex brings her wand up, blindly fires a curse off over her shoulder at the furious buzzing behind her, and sprints like mad for the end of the alley. Just a year ago, when she was still faking cramps to get out of gym on a regular basis, she would have been wheezing after just a few dozen steps. The strict exercise and nutrition regime that Justin had put her on as her independent study advisor had quickly made up for the lack, though. And as much as she still misses chili cheeseburgers with curly fries in the bun, and chocolate shakes with whipped cream in the bottom—oh so very, very much—this whole staying-one-step-ahead-of-certain-doom thing makes up for it. Well, almost.

Goddamned if he isn't going to be insufferably smug about _that_, too, though. Gah. Clearly, she's going to have to avoid him for a day or two, once all this is over. Right after the victory sex, of course, because the only thing hotter than make-up sex is victory sex. Although...ooo, hold the phone...maybe if she picks a fight with him _about_ him being insufferably smug during the afterglow, then she might actually be able engineer both in the same night!

She yelps in surprise as another bolt sizzles past, so close that a static tingle crawls across her cheek. OK, clearly she needs to focus, here.

Her lungs burning, Alex vaults over the snoring wino slumped against the wall at the mouth of the alley—conveniently, the only other living soul out and about at three-thirty in the morning—and out onto the street. She skids to a halt on the heels of her Converse high-tops, then jumps backwards, pressing her shoulder blades against the front of the brownstone building. Covering her mouth and nose with her free hand to muffle her heavy breathing, she holds her wand at the ready with the other, and waits. The wisp was right behind her. Any second now...

As if on cue, the willow wisp comes shooting out of the alley at top speed, overshooting her by several yards, then pauses in midair and bobs uncertainly as it tries to get its bearings.

"Game over, Lite Brite," Alex grins, then levels her wand at it. _"Before this douche can fire its beam, wrap it in a containment stream!"_

And then she flinches away from her wand, squinting against the sudden brightness as a brilliant red and blue ribbon of energy explodes from the tip, arcing through the air to twine itself around the hovering wisp. It shrieks in anger in surprise, and begins to shake violently back and forth, fighting to batter itself loose. Alex gasps as her wand suddenly jerks to the right, nearly slipping right out of her grasp. Grabbing it with both hands, so tightly that her hands go white at the knuckles, she grits her teeth and struggles to control the stream with all her might.

Then, just as she fears that she's about to lose it, a second confinement stream crashes through the air from the other side of the alley, and loops itself around the wisp in concert with her own, helping to keep it steady. Feeling the tug on her own stream lessening a little, she risks a glance to her left to see Justin glaring at her in exasperation as he grips his own wand in both hands.

"Why in the hell would you chase it into its nest yourself, like that?" he growls over the roar of their twin proton streams. "Especially after I specifically told you not to?"

"Duh! Have we met?" Alex yells, with a roll of her eyes. "When are you gonna learn that the quickest way to get me to do something is to tell me _not_ to? Besides, you're the one who said we needed to draw it out into the open!"

Justin opens his mouth to retort, but anything he says is drowned out by the high-pitched, keening wail that the wisp gives off in its desperation to escape, making them both wince as it threatens to shatter their eardrums.

"Yeah, well maybe now you'll never zap a chick with three thousand completed spells under her belt, you whiny little bitch!" Alex sneers at it. And yeah, so maybe it's been a couple months since that happened, and she's still dining on it. So what? She's allowed.

The wisp actually growls at her angrily, impotently throwing off sparks in response.

"Alex, shorten your stream!" Justin yells. "I don't want my face burned off!"

Whoops. Alex blinks, looks down at her wand and gives it a quarter-turn counter-clockwise, decreasing the arc of her stream. Then she casts a glance over her shoulder at the wino napping behind her at the mouth of the alley.

"Hey, you!" she shouts. "Hey c'mon, get up already!"

The wino doesn't move, continues snoring loudly. Alex's shoulders sag in disbelief before she kicks back to jab him in the ribs with the heel of her shoe.

"Goddammit Max, you were only supposed to _pretend_ to be asleep! Would you wake the fuck up?"

With a grunt, Max's head comes up beneath his tattered, dirty baseball cap. He yawns, and raises one arm to shield his eyes from the brilliant flare cast off by the twin proton beams and the angry wisp, before he blinks at them blearily and seems to come to his senses.

"Oh right, that's what we're doing now," he mutters, ignoring the angry glare Alex shoots him over her shoulder. Throwing aside the grimy newspapers he's covered himself in, he stands up off the black-and-yellow-striped iron chest that he's been sitting on. He pulls his wand out of his back pocket, raps the tip of it against the top of the chest, then flicks it towards the rain-slicked street just beyond the alley. Immediately, the chest goes skidding across the wet pavement of its own volition, until it comes to a halt directly beneath the wisp.

"Alright, I'm opening the trap now!" Max yells, aiming his wand at the chest. "Remember, don't look directly into the trap! Bring your streams off as soon as I close it! Ready? OK, on the count of ten: one, two—"

"JUST OPEN THE DAMN TRAP, ALREADY!" Alex and Justin howl at him in the same breath.

"TEN!" Max shouts, flicking his wand backwards as though throwing a switch. The lid of the chest swivels open, and a bright shaft of impossibly bright light erupts upwards from it, enveloping the wisp, drawing it inexorably downwards. The creature wails and screeches as it struggles against the trap's pull, stretched impossibly lengthwise, as though it's being sucked into a black hole. And then, as Max flicks his wand forward again, and his siblings yank their containment streams away, the wisp gives a final anguished howl of frustration as it collapses back to its original size and disappears into the shimmering white void of the trap, right before the lid slams closed, echoing into the night.

In the silence that follows, Alex and her brothers stare wordlessly at the chest, then exchange glances and approach it cautiously, wands held at the ready until they're surrounding it on three sides. Max raises his foot and pokes it with the toe of his shoe. And though the chest sparks a little in response, otherwise, the trap appears to hold.

"It's in there," Justin says, staring at it, almost in disbelief. Then, grinning up at Alex proudly: "We did it! We finally caught it!"

And before she can react, Justin rushes forward, grabs her by the waist and lifts her into the air, twirling her around in a circle as she squeals in surprise and delight. She wraps her legs around his midsection and braces her forearms on his shoulders, bringing one hand to the back of his neck to draw him into a deep kiss. His tongue wrestles eagerly with hers as he slides his hands from her waist down to her ass, squeezing it gently.

Oh yeah, victory sex is _so_ definitely on the menu for tonight.

"Aw geeeeeeez, you guys!" Max groans, covering his eyes with one hand. "Look, not that I mind, but you're making it awfully hard for me to completely misread the situation, here."

Alex and Justin break their kiss with a moist smack, then sheepishly disentangle themselves from one another, blushing furiously.

"Sorry, Max," they both mutter. Sometimes they forget that he's not _officially_ supposed to know about them, even though he's technically known since before either of them were willing to admit it to each other. Or even to themselves, really. Well, at least part of him has, anyway. Whatever, it's complicated.

"Uh huh," Max says, rolling his eyes at them as he bends over to pick up the trap. He stumbles backwards a little as he heaves it up to his chest. "Crap, this thing is even heavier now with the wisp in it. Why am I always the one who has to look after the trap? Why can't I be on confinement duty?"

"Finish your wizard lessons and graduate to independent study, already, and you can be," Justin says evenly, although judging by the look on his face, he hopes that day never comes. Because the idea of Max wielding a proton stream? Yikes.

"Exactly," Alex nods, agreeing with him for once. "Until then? You're trap boy."

"Ugh, fine," Max grunts. "I'll bring this back to the lair. You two go get a room, or whatever. You want me to whip up a couple duplicates for you, just in case?"

Alex exchanges a furtive glance with Justin. He clears his throat awkwardly. "You, uh, sure you don't mind, buddy?"

"Yeah, sure," Max shrugs. "Just make sure you're back before Mom tries to get either of your doubles up for breakfast. Mine still bark. And remember, we have a deal!"

Alex frowns at this in confusion, but Justin simply nods in resignation. "I know. I haven't forgotten."

Max grins as he tucks the trap under one arm, and raises his wand with the other. "Have fun, you two. I'd say 'don't do anything I wouldn't do', but I think we all know the chances of that happening are slim to none."

And then he winks, waves his wand in a circle, and disappears into thin air as he flashes himself back home.

"Deal?" Alex asks, as she stares at the empty spot where he was, then cocks an eyebrow up at Justin. "What deal? I didn't agree to anything."

Justin sighs as he takes her hand in his, and they begin to head down the street towards Washington Square Park. "The next time we all do this, Max wants us to wear matching masks and capes to go along with our Monster Hunter uniforms. He figures since we're essentially fighting crime by night anyway, we might as well look the part. I told him that if he kept covering for us, we'd think about it."

"Wow," Alex blinks. "Not only are you advocating the irresponsible use of magic for your own ends, but now you're actually manipulating your little brother into doing the dirty work for you? Very devious, egghead. I'm impressed."

"Uh, newsflash: I've been covertly dating my sister for a little over a year, Alex. Things like this have kind of become second nature to me, by now," Justin says flatly.

"C'mon, you know you love it," Alex giggles, elbowing him gently in the side.

"Yeah well, you don't have to sound so insufferably smug about it," he gripes sourly.

Alex gives a start, then finds herself grinning proudly, as it gradually occurs to her that this whole 'rubbing off on one another' thing might be more of a two-way street than she realized. And maybe they'll both wind up better off for it in the long run, even if neither of them is exactly thrilled about the idea most of the time.

"I especially like how you told him you'd just think about it, without committing to actually doing it," Alex says, squeezing his hand. "Gives you just the right amount of wiggle room to say no without technically going back on your word."

"Mmm," Justin says noncommittally, suddenly seeming to find the toes of his boots extremely interesting.

Alex narrows her eyes at him. "Dude, you _are_ planning to say no. Because you realize how ridiculous we're going to look Monster Hunting in cosplay outfits, yeah?"

Justin shrugs his shoulders slightly, without looking up. "There _are_ any number of benefits to be derived from the use of enchanted cloaks and helms: increased strength, stamina, charisma, hit poi—um, I mean, vitality. And let's be completely honest, here: would we really look any more ridiculous than we already do?"

"That depends," Alex scoffs. "Are we getting Harper to—oh please God, no. Tell me you're not getting Harper to make them."

"She..._may_ have overheard the conversation and volunteered?" Justin says, wincing at her slightly.

"Ugh," Alex groans, hanging her head. "Dude, no. Absolutely not. If you and Max want to run around the city like assholes in your Finkle Original tights and booties, knock yourselves out. But there's no way in _hell_—"

"Alex, Max is closing in on his three-thousandth spell," Justin cuts her off, his voice quiet but strangely urgent. "Yeah, you pulled ahead of him at the end, there, but just barely. The competition is coming up sooner than you might think. We really don't have a whole lot of time left to live out our dreams together like this, before two of us are forced to become mortals."

Alex glances up at him in surprise. By mutual, unspoken agreement, they haven't really talked about the Wizard Competition at all in the year they've been together—their fiercely competitive streak having been channeled into, um, other pursuits—but it's been the elephant in the room ever since she graduated from regular Wizard Lessons. Which she never would have done if he hadn't helped her every step of the way. And where before she would have automatically assumed that by 'two of us forced to become mortals', he really meant her and Max, now she isn't so sure anymore. The way he's pushed her over the past twelve months, forced her to buckle down and finally realize this 'untapped potential' crap that everyone's been going on about for her entire life, makes her think that he's actually trying to give her a fighting chance to keep her powers. Or maybe even that he just straight up wants her to win.

So maybe when he's talking about not having much time to live out their dreams together...maybe he's actually talking about his own.

"Are you sure we're still talking about Max, there, Dork Knight?" she asks softly, with a knowing smirk. "Admit it, egghead: you really just want an excuse to play super hero, don't you?"

Justin doesn't reply, but raises his eyebrows at her imploringly, his blue-grey eyes going soft at the corners. And crap, even though she can recognize that her patented Alex Russo Puppy Dog Stare is being thrown right back at her, she still feels her resolve beginning to crumble. Dammit, why does he always have to be such a quick study?

"Oh, for the love of Christ...fine," she groans, against her better judgment. "One time. And I get to be Catwoman."

Justin breaks out into a wide smile as he pulls his hand out of hers and throws his arm around her, and Alex reluctantly allows herself to be drawn into a sideways hug. But then he blinks as something occurs to him. "Wait, but Alex...Catwoman doesn't wear a cape..."

Alex glares up at him, the fire in her eyes leaving no room for debate. He rears back and holds up his free hand, patting the air between them. "OK, OK! Catwoman it is!"

"Damn straight," she purrs as she leans into him and tucks one hand into his back pocket, enjoying way his ass flexes under her palm as they cross the street. "Hey, where the hell are you taking me, anyway?"

"NYU has some pretty awesome student gym facilities," Justin replies. "Way better than the good ol' home gym. I thought I'd give you a tour."

"What, right now? At this hour? They're still gonna be open?"

"Actually, no. They'll definitely be closed. Completely deserted." He wiggles his eyebrows at her meaningfully, in what he probably thinks is a suave and debonair fashion, and it's so faux-cool that it's adorable. "We'd have the whole place to ourselves."

"Ah ha," she says, a wicked grin slowly spreading across her face at how well he knows her. Because victory sex, with a side of her bizarre little workout kink? Um, yes please. "And, uh, we're supposed to get in how, exactly?"

Justin snorts and looks down at her like this should be the most obvious thing in the world. "Um, Alex? In case you missed the memo? _We're wizards_...for a little while longer, at least."

Alex's jaw drops in astonishment at what he's suggesting, and for a moment she's tempted to ask who is he is, and what he's done with her big brother. Maybe he _does_ have a little bit of a Batman streak in him, after all.

"Oh wow," she gasps, feeling a thrill run through her at this hot little bad boy side she's cultivated in him without even realizing it. "I'm starting to think that maybe I've created a monster."

"Level ten, baby," he says, in that endearing trying-to-be-cool voice that's never quite worked for him. "What do you think, Apprentice Monster Hunter Russo? Do you have what it takes to bring me down?"

"Pfft. Oh, you know it, dude," Alex scoffs, squeezing his ass in her palm. "As many times as I need to, for you to _stay_ down."

"Heh. You sure, there, honey?" Justin chuckles, with the glint of a challenge in his eye. "Because, y'know, that could take awhile. I'd understand if you're too tired..."

Alex smirks as this prompts a snippet of a song lyric to pop into her head, and flips her hair confidently over her shoulder. _"More than ever hour after,"_ she quotes, _"our work is never over."_

Justin actually stops in his tracks at the base of the Washington Square Arch, and stares at her in shock, eyebrows raised, then turns and gathers her into his arms.

_"I need you, right now,"_ he quotes back.

Grinning widely, Alex grabs the sides of his vest, lifts herself up on tiptoe and tilts her chin up towards him, as Justin dips his forehead down towards hers. As they kiss, he draws his wand out from his back pocket, twirls it around his finger, then waves it in the air with a flourish. And the laws of physics and probability look the other way for a moment as they disappear from the street in a flash, holding tightly on to one another. Together, now and always, and each of them forever a finer person for it: harder, better, faster, stronger.

—30—


End file.
